The Prince
by Darth Gilthoron
Summary: A series of scenes fitted inbetween the movie scenes and following after it, from Kirill's point of view. Rated for language, violence and sexual content.
1. Lust and Longing

_I wish I had an angel  
__For one moment of love  
I wish I had your angel  
Your Virgin Mary undone  
I'm in love with my lust  
Burning angelwings to dust  
I wish I had your angel tonight_

-Nightwish, Wish I had an Angel

* * *

Desire is pulsing through him as he turns away, filling him with liquid fire. Once he has made it around the corner he stumbles, leans against the wall, fights for air like a drowning man. His breathing is laboured, just as if it were him who had performed the act just now, not Nikolai.

Nikolai. God, Nikolai.

His chest is heaving, and his thoughts are spiralling madly in his head. He does not stand still because he has himself under control, but because he is so out of control he cannot even move a limb without concentrating at the moment.

Damn that alcohol.

No. There's more. There's so much more…

Kirill is unable to put a name to what it is that he feels. Lust, yes, a deep, strong lust at having witnessed what Nikolai has just done with that little blond thing, but at the same time, something else, something that is roaring inside him, a screaming creature, a mad, ravaging beast…

He wants to storm back in, to press the girl down on the bed, pin her under him, and have his way with her, find the satisfaction he so desperately craves while Nikolai stands beside him, watching.

He wants to see Nikolai filled with desire anew as he is forced to watch how he finds his release, how he in turn collapses over the girl, satisfied, while it is Nikolai who once again yearns for satisfaction…

It could go on forever like that.

And all he needs is a moment, just a brief moment, nothing more…

And all of eternity for Nikolai, an eternity of yearning and never finding what he so desperately longs for, never, for refusing what Kirill has offered him initially. Damn you, I made myself vulnerable to you, and you did not care. You simply could have a slut, you ungrateful son of a bitch. We could have had her together. We could have…

But no, I was a fool, a goddamn idiot!

He clenches his teeth, drawing a sharp breath with a hiss like a serpent's, and it is an angry serpent that is coiled inside him, coiled like a spring, coiled so tightly it will burst and tear him to pieces, rip him to shreds, destroy him…

And he craves this moment of black oblivion, the never-ending fall into a gaping maw of nothingness…

He curses the alcohol for bedazzling his senses, for enhancing the rush of liquid flame that burns up every conscious thought. For today he has had enough of it. He is sick of it. And it does not matter to him. There is only one desire that remains…

He pushes himself away from the wall. At first everything sways around him, heaving like on a ship borne on wild waves, but he keeps himself steady, and the sensation fades as quickly as it has come. What does not change is his desperate lust, the lust that drives him forward.

Returning to the girls' room, where they now sit together and chatter, all except one, which probably is somewhere with Sergei, Kirill gestures to pretty little Sonya, and she understands. She always does. He has had her before, and she is willing and eager to please. She takes his hand, looking up at him through her long dark lashes, and leads him to a room across the corridor, where she gently nudges him to sit down on the bed.

He cannot quite stifle the moan that escapes his throat, and she smiles up at him as she hears it, from her kneeling position between his legs. Kneeling like a slave before her master. She pulls down his zipper and reaches inside, but he stops her by placing a hand on her wrist, doing his best not to squash it in his wild, unsated desire, because in truth he wants to be touched there, yearns for it so much it nearly turns to pain. "No, not just that." His own voice sounds ragged and breathless in his ears. "The whole thing." Yes, he could let her use her lips and tongue on him, like she has done it before once when he was burning for a quick release, but he wants more.

She nods and unbuckles his belt, but once again he stops her. "Shirt first. Do it properly."

Immediately she complies, crawls onto the bed behind him and helps him out of his already unbuttoned shirt, caressing his exposed skin as she does so. By now she knows what he likes, and the next time she probably will start with stripping him to the waist of her own accord. After all, she is a quick learner once she has been told explicitly. There is no need for punishment of any kind.

He briefly wonders why Nikolai kept his shirt on. He never does that himself. He keeps his trousers on sometimes, with just the fly open, but never his shirt. He would feel foolish that way, without his trousers but in a shirt, and he hates that feeling. He wants to be in control.

Just like he was in control of those two just now, Nikolai and the little bitch. The thought sends another jolt of lust through him, and he growls with pleasure as Sonya's hands wander over his bare torso. I had you, Nikolai, he thinks and grins at the thought. Serves you right for refusing to share a girl with me, you git, you… Man, Kolya, I just had you.

You sicko, he tells himself. You fucking queer. But he cannot drive the image of Nikolai out of his mind, Nikolai with his shirt hanging open and his trousers down, thrusting into the girl with abandon.

Maybe it is better Nikolai has not accepted his initial offer, or else, who knows what might have happened?

Still, why did that fucking jerk refuse? Why? He has offered to share a girl with him, which was an obvious gesture of friendship and trust! Nikolai, you fucking ungrateful bastard! You could even have picked the girl, what more do you want?

But I made you. I showed you the consequences. You had no choice, you had to take her in front of me, no display of friendship anymore, but of who's in charge… and that's still me, whatever you think…

He needs it now, needs Sonya under him on her back, or his desire will surely drive him mad and fill him with more of those images he is unable to banish from his mind. "Hurry up," he tells her through clenched teeth, and she opens his trousers, while he tries to get her out of her little pink jacket at the same time. What is this thing, he thinks, fishnet stockings made into another piece of clothing? But what does he care? He gets up from the bed and manages to remove the jacket before she has any time to pull his trousers down. Silly girl, it won't work that way! He kicks his shoes off and starts at her short dress, and she lets go of his trousers, which fall down to his ankles, to let him undress her. As her head emerges from the brown, orange and white fabric, she is actually smiling. Discarding the dress carelessly, he pulls her to him, nudging her chin up, and kisses her neck greedily, her skin smooth and warm beneath his hands as he undoes the fastenings of her gold-coloured bra, before he pushes her away once more as he pulls it off her and steps out of his trousers at the same time. He lets himself fall back onto the bed, and she kneels down to remove his socks before she comes to join him, wearing nothing but her pink panties now, and her high-heeled shoes, which he snatches off her feet to throw them aside, her socks to follow immediately. She lets him, then crawls over him and leans down to kiss him, and he does her the favour of allowing her tongue to play with his for a bit, despite feeling like he is going to burst out of his boxers. But he wants her to be ready for him, ready to contain him…

Watch this, Nikolai. Come on and watch this.

He turns Sonya onto her back and drags her panties down, and it pleases him to feel that they are a little moist. You want this, you little whore, eh? You want me, I know you want me…

At last she helps him out of his boxers. By now she knows how urgently he needs her, for she obediently spreads her legs for him without him having to tell her to do it, or to nudge them apart. He is over her at once, gratefully burying himself in her warm flesh, and she wraps her legs around his waist and clutches his shoulders, holding him tight, following his strong, swift motions willingly.

This is how he likes his women. He hates having to take them by force. He wants to be in command, yes, always in control, and even if he is letting the girl take a more active part, something he quite enjoys from time to time, he still remains in charge, but when a girl whimpers and sobs under him, he just cannot take her. It sickens him. It makes him see a child instead of a young woman, and he does not want to rape children. He is not like Soyka, that vile rapist of little girls.

His thrusts grow rougher as he thinks of Soyka and as fury boils up in him, and a brief notion of disgust at the thought of his dead body, but then he thinks of Nikolai, of Nikolai getting ready to process Soyka's remains, of Nikolai's calmness and professional elegance, his precise motions…

He ejaculates then, with this image still before his inner eye, his face hidden in Sonya's dark hair, nuzzled against the side of her neck. She strokes his back as he catches his breath, unaware of what was just going on in his mind…

You goddamn fucking pervert, he thinks as he rolls off her and stretches out on his back. You sick creature. Even thinking of Nikolai's naked body would be better than this.

And you shouldn't think of that, either.

Sonya sits up, strokes his cheek and wants to get off the bed, but he holds her back. "I'm not finished with you yet." He realises he has slipped into English once again, as so often, but it does not matter, she understands him anyway, and she curls up beside him once more, with her back against him. She always complies; she has done so every time, from the day on when he has taken her virginity.

He feels better now, definitely better, but at the same time he feels dirty for what has happened earlier on. Damn it, Nikolai, it wasn't you who made me come just now! And it also wasn't you who made me that fucking horny, either!

No, it really has not been Nikolai who has given him an orgasm, he thinks, that has happened all by itself, since he has been forcefully thrusting into Sonya, feeling it drawing nearer and nearer. But why he has been in this state in the first place…

"Any news?" he asks, willing himself to forget about it all and blaming it on the alcohol.

Sonya rolls over so that she now lies facing him, and he feels her breasts against his side. He has not even fondled them yet, it occurs to him, he has been in such a hurry to find relief from his tormenting desire. They are rather small, but they are nicely shaped, and most likely they will grow a little more. After all, Sonya is not quite sixteen yet, as far as he knows. Old enough to sleep with a man, but not entirely a grown woman yet. "Chernov was here," she informs him, stroking his chest with her right hand.

"Really? Who has he been with?" There are goose-bumps rising on her skin, he feels as he caresses her shoulder, so he sits up and pulls the blanket out from under them. He does not only do it for her; he knows that soon enough, when the thin layer of sweat coating his skin is starting to dry, he would feel the chill also.

"Olga. She says he was a bore, and clumsy." She gratefully crawls under the blanket with him, only to resume the pose she has taken just before, and he pulls the blanket up to about the middle of his stomach. Now they are peacefully lying side by side, Sonya seems relaxed enough to actually giggle. "She says even Sergei is better, and he's no good either."

He chuckles quietly, amused at this remark. "Poor Olga, having to endure boring, butt-ugly Sergei."

"Now, now. He's not ugly, actually." Sonya thoughtlessly traces the letters tattooed onto the right side of his chest with her fingertip. Fate plays with a man. "He's just… just…" She searches for appropriate words to describe the man in charge at this brothel, and Kirill knows that she will do her best to make her opinion sound as polite as possible. After all, that he has just insulted him does not necessarily mean that she may do the same. Clever girl. "You know, he just wants girls to dance for him, and then do a slow strip, and pose in nothing but stockings and shoes. High-heeled ones, of course. Olga thinks he has a bit of a weird fetish, but others say it's not that unusual."

"It's not," he confirms. "But I'm an exception to the rule."

"I know." Sonya's fingertip has wandered on to caress the star under his right collarbone. "And he always wants them to touch themselves." She starts playing with his gold necklace, and only then does he notice that he is still wearing it.

"And Olga doesn't like him," he concludes. Why have a girl touch herself when you can touch her instead? It's so much more fun.

"No," she confides. "But he favours her. She'd rather do it with Nikolai, I think, but she has never yet gotten near him. Well, he hasn't been here that often, so…"

See here, Kolya, you're popular. "I'll tell him to fuck her the next time, then," he says lightly. How powerful he feels, uttering words like these and knowing he can really do it, not merely say it! "Or both Sergei and Nikolai," he boasts. "Both at once." On the other hand, even if Sergei would obey, which is likely, but not certain, he would not want to do this to Nikolai. When Nikolai engages in a threesome at all, he definitely knows that he would be the third himself, not anyone else. He is not letting anyone near Nikolai.

And he is acting like a stupid jealous girl, he thinks angrily. "Now how about you?" he asks, to get his mind off that idiotic thing. He should never have thought of a threesome with Nikolai in the first place.

"Me, with Sergei and Nikolai at once?" She laughs at it.

"Yes, with boring, butt-ugly Sergei and boring, butt-ugly Nikolai," he teases her. He wants to hear her defend his friend, he realises, wants to hear what she thinks of him.

"Nikolai is quite good-looking," she protests, promptly doing him the favour, and he smiles up at the ceiling, as if a compliment for his driver were a compliment for him. "But I'd rather be with handsome Kirill." And she kisses the side of his neck.

His smile broadens. Of course he is aware that if she had a choice, she would not be here. She would be far away. What she is trying to do is get him to make her his private mistress, perhaps, and take her away from this place. After all, it is his father who is in charge here, and it certainly is a good move to please the son. All the same, he knows that she likes him, in a way, and if only because there hardly is anybody else she could possibly like. "And why would you choose me over Nikolai?" Come on, tell me what I have that Nikolai has not, and pray it's not because of my father!

"Because you're good," she says simply, and once again her hand wanders over his chest. She knows perfectly well that he likes this kind of caress.

He grins to himself. "Because I believe in foreplay? Normally, anyway?" And because I've given you a couple of good orgasms, as far as I know, he mentally adds. Well, I can tell. I know when it's fake. And I know you're damn horny every time I get you laid, although that probably makes you feel sick and guilty afterwards.

The thought arouses him once again, and it is a good feeling. It proves that he does not need Nikolai, that he is no queer, whatever Soyka and his kind claim.

Instead of an answer, she crawls over him and starts kissing his chest. She must have noticed his once again growing desire and knows what he wants now. With a sigh of pleasure, he closes his eyes and threads his fingers into her soft hair. He likes long hair on women, preferably dark hair.

He and Nikolai are different in that aspect: Nikolai favours the blond ones.

Well, small surprise he picked a blond bitch just now!

Of course the images are back now, and they incite his desire. He growls and presses Sonya's naked body against his, but surely she will think this is because she is busy suckling his left nipple at the moment. Foreplay, yes. He usually likes a bit of foreplay when the girl is skilled, and when she really does well, he is ready to repay her in kind. To have a woman moan with genuine pleasure under him, to have her beg for more, to be her ultimate god for a little while is an immensely stimulating thing.

He rolls her over suddenly, grinning at her little squeal, and starts nibbling one of her breasts while he cups the other with his hand. Indeed they are a bit small for his taste, but it does not matter that much, as long as they can be fondled.

Another proof that he is no damn queer: He likes nicely shaped breasts far too much.

Still, Nikolai has a perfect torso.

Pushing the thought away angrily, he first bites Sonya's neck, then parts her legs and kneels between them to lick her for a bit, just to hear her moan. This, too, is a kind of power he exerts over her. She is ready for him, more than ready, but he continues until he knows she is close to reaching the peak. He pulls back then, and instead lies over her and enters her once again, and soon enough she is already gasping and groaning softly under him, her fingers clenching around his upper arms.

He finishes soon after her. It has taken a little longer than the first time, but still it was short. He is impatient today, he notices. With a sigh of content he lies back again beside her, just for a moment, before getting dressed once more…

Only then he notices that Nikolai is standing in the doorway, his shoulder against the frame, his shirt still unbuttoned and hanging wide open. He does not move, just stands waiting quietly, and a tiny smile is playing around his lips.

"What the bloody fucking hell are you doing here?" he flares up, and Sonya winces beside him at hearing his tone. He scares her when he is furious, he knows it, but he does not care at the moment.

"Your father called," Nikolai says calmly. At least he has pulled the door shut behind him again. "I picked it up since you weren't around, but he insists that it's urgent."

He curses and climbs out of bed, throwing the blanket back over Sonya. That Nikolai can now see him naked does not matter to him; Nikolai has seen him without any clothes before. He pulls his boxers on, then bends down to retrieve his trousers. "Give me my phone, then," he demands while he does them up.

Nikolai hands him his mobile phone, which he has left in the pocket of his jacket, and he selects his father's number from those saved among his contacts, muttering to himself furiously. Can't a man even have a moment's peace with a little bitch without being disturbed?

How much has Nikolai seen, he wonders while the phone rings, for how long has he been there?

And is he really angry that Nikolai walked in? Is he angry at all?

Isn't this what he secretly wanted?

"Yes?" his father prompts at the other end. "Kirill?"

"It's me, Papa. You said you wanted me?"

"I'm meeting up with Timofey Uchanev in half an hour's time, and I would like you to be present." How surprisingly warm his father's voice sounds! And yet he knows better than to assume that his father has already forgotten about his recent excessive drunkenness.

"The contact from Kazakhstan?"

"Precisely," his father confirms. "Hurry. This is important."

"I will, Papa, don't worry." It might be considered an honour, actually, but he rather tends to see it as a subtle reminder of the important role he, the only son, should play in the family. At least his father judges him to be intelligent enough to catch the hint, he thinks with a wry little smile as he hangs up and pockets the phone, then puts his socks and shoes back on. "Let's be off, Kolya. Meeting in half an hour. See you, Sonya," he adds as an afterthought as he picks up his shirt.

"Bye, Kirill." She probably is glad to be alone again, he assumes as he leaves the room, hearing her voice calling after him, but what does he care? She considers offering herself to the boss's son not so bad, clearly, and does it really matter if she does so because she finds him handsome, because he is good at what he does, or because she simply hopes to win his affection or at least a small favour this way? It doesn't, not at all.

Yes it does. It does.

You're growing soft, he tells himself as he looks around for Sergei, who still is nowhere to be seen.

"He's still busy," Nikolai remarks, guessing who it is he is looking for.

Kirill shrugs, pulling his shirt back on and buttoning it up while hurrying down the stairs, and Nikolai does the same, with his jacket and tie over his arm. "No matter. C'mon."

Why does he feel so bleak, he wonders as he later on sits in the passenger seat, beside Nikolai, and silently gazes out at the street, at the other cars passing by, why does he feel so empty? What is the matter with him? The mad, burning desire from before is gone, leaving nothing in its wake. Nothing. A deep void in his heart.

Involuntarily he sighs, and he sees from the corner of his eye that Nikolai's gaze briefly flickers towards him. He inwardly curses himself for showing what could be seen as weakness, even in front of Nikolai, who is the best friend he has, but Nikolai does not comment, and he feels a new wave of affection running through him, sentimental as it is.

And once again the scene from before appears before his inner eye, Nikolai furiously, ecstatically thrusting into that girl… The unfocused look in his eyes after it was over, the first time Kirill has ever seen them gone unfocused… He shakes his head as if shaking a few stray strands of hair out of his eyes, but really he is trying to shake those images off. They make him feel dirty, in a way. Guilty.

Is Nikolai at the same time thinking of what he witnessed when he came in with the phone?

As if he could read his thoughts, Nikolai suddenly says, "I know now what it is the girls like about you."

"Really?" he asks in English, only to switch back into Russian straight away. "What is it, my arse?"

Nikolai chuckles, his typical dry chuckle of amusement. "I didn't see much of that. The blanket was in the way. But I can prepare a well-rounded report and critique, if you like. Just give me five minutes to stare at it, and I'll take notes."

His face remains serious as he says it, and so does his tone, but as Kirill turns to look at him, he sees that sparkle in Nikolai's greyish-blue eyes, the sparkle of mischief, and simultaneously they burst out laughing. "How dare you judge the arse of a _vor_, you Siberian ox?" he mocks him.

Not so long ago, he has bellowed something similar at Nikolai, but in a very serious, angry fashion, he notices, and he now feels sorry for it, in a way, but he does not know what to say about it, if anything at all. Does a vor not have to prove his authority at times? Does he not have to make sure his subordinates fear his wrath?

Was it not all Nikolai's own fault, anyway?

Does not apologising prove his weakness?

He tends to doubt this, but he is sure his father thinks that way, and he is reluctant to question his father.

But then again, what business of his father's is it what he says to Nikolai?

It would be very simple. Sorry I shouted at you. But Kirill cannot quite get himself to say it. Instead, he bites his lower lip and looks at his own knees. Under the black fabric of his trousers, the stars are hidden, the stars that make him who he is. The stars that signify that he will kneel to no one. Never. To no one in the world.

No. Kirill will not be weak.

Besides, it's really all Nikolai's fault. Kirill has made him an offer, and a generous offer at that. He would even have let him pick the girl they would have shared. But no, Nikolai just doesn't get it, disloyal bastard that he is!

Yet all the same… Kirill cannot deny that he feels bad about it all, very bad indeed.

"You might have let me judge the slut's arse instead," Nikolai remarks, and Kirill looks up and grins. For some reason, he likes it when his friend speaks of matters like these. "She's a pretty thing."

"She's mine, brother." Kirill does his best to imitate Nikolai's predator smile. "Because she's good. I've got her well trained, see?" This is safe territory, talking about women. "She actually likes getting fucked, as long as it's me."

"I could see that," Nikolai states, and there is the feeling of awkwardness again, hanging between them like a cloud of mist slowly turning to fabric, but Nikolai does not seem to notice it. "That was what I was referring to. You seem to be a skilled lover. I had no idea."

Kirill inhales slowly. This is not the kind of compliment one expects from a man, not even from a friend as close as a brother. "Of course you had no idea, dummy," he tries to lighten the mood by joking. "Because I can't fuck you, can I now?" But it does not help at all.

"Technically you could," Nikolai says calmly, taking a right turn, "but if you absolutely insist, I must ask you to wait 'til the day when you wake up as a girl."

"Wouldn't dream of it. You go turn yourself into a girl. It can be done surgically, you know. Pretty realistic, even. I've seen pictures." The idea of a female Nikolai amuses him greatly, and he tries to imagine him with long hair and in a dress. "I'm sure you'd make a lovely woman," he teases him.

"Sorry to disappoint you," Nikolai teases him back, "but you'll find no doctor who'd do that to me. I'd have to be a woman psychologically for that kind of thing."

"How do I know you aren't, secretly?" Poking fun at Nikolai probably is the best way to get over what happened at the brothel.

"You just saw me fuck a girl, didn't you?"

So much for avoiding the topic. "That proves nothing. You might be a lesbian."

Even Nikolai laughs at that, and Kirill is glad he managed to get him to, no matter how idiotic the joke. "This is the first time in my life somebody accuses me of being a lesbian. Do you do that kind of thing often?"

"What, find out my men are lesbians? Nah, Kolya, you're the first lesbian who ever worked for me. But don't worry, I'm not going to fire you because of it. I've always wanted a girl driver."

Nikolai takes a hand from the wheel to playfully swat at him without turning his attention away from the road, and Kirill knows everything is alright. When Nikolai starts play-wrestling or anything similar, which happens rarely enough – normally it is Kirill who starts it –, then he is in a cheerful mood. As calm and controlled as he is, it is hard to read his emotions, but Kirill has come to know him better than anyone else. Often enough he has no clue what is going on in Nikolai's head, but there are hints, hints which he has learned to interpret, and this one was fairly obvious.

The next moment, though, Nikolai spoils it all again, destroys Kirill's newfound cheerfulness with just a few simple words. "Did your father tell you to put me to such a test?"

At once Kirill feels trapped, and the guilty feeling he has tried so hard to banish returns to him, comes crashing down on him, accompanied by a wave of disgust at himself. You fucking kinky queer perverted bastard, a voice at the back of his head whispers, and he can practically hear the words being uttered in his father's voice. You knew before that he's no queer. You knew it exactly. There was no need for this… except for your own sick need, you swine, and your stupid wounded pride. It wasn't the girl's body that made you horny, not even her nice tits, and you know that. You filthy queer, you were trying to have what you can't get…

"It's no fucking business of yours what my father tells me and doesn't tell me," he says harshly. "No fucking matter if it's about you or not."

Nikolai says nothing, but Kirill does not even have to look at him to know what kind of expression he is wearing: that look. The knowing look that says it all. And he hates it when Nikolai wears it, he hates it with passion. In a way, though, he cannot but admire him for always knowing everything, but this sentiment makes him even more furious.

At times he hates Nikolai for always seeing him through. And yet, Nikolai is the only one who will be there for him when he needs someone, the only one who will understand.

And Nikolai understands everything, and he remembers. He knows Kirill's every weakness. He knows far too much.

And he will remember the offer he has made him in the first place: that they share a girl. He will remember, and he may draw conclusions from it.

Before he has met Nikolai, Soyka probably was his best friend, if he could ever have called him thus. He has never trusted Soyka with so much, but still, they have shared a few things. If not friends, they have been companions. But Soyka is dead now, and he does not miss him. It does not matter to him. Well, maybe it does, yes, because, after all, they really have spent a lot of time together, maybe it does, he admits it, but not so much. Alright, it did upset him, though he has done his best not to show it, but he has not cried over it or anything. When Nikolai knows too much, maybe it would be best to dispose of him too.

But then he imagines Nikolai's body in the place of Soyka's, and immediately he knows that this would not be the same thing, and he does not need the stinging feeling in his eyes to tell him how much it would hurt. Defiantly staring ahead until the blur in his vision clears up again, he hopes that Nikolai has not noticed the brief increase of moisture in his eyes.

For tonight he will think of something, he decides, something they can do together that Nikolai will enjoy, just to show him he likes him. Anything. As long as he does not have to apologise.


	2. No way to fight

_Dear Mother  
Dear Father  
Hidden in your world you've made for me  
I'm seething  
I'm bleeding  
Ripping wounds in me that never heal  
Undying spite I feel for you  
Living out this hell you always knew_

-Metallica, Dyers Eve

* * *

"Papa! Papa, I swear, I –"

"Shut up!" his father thunders, cutting him off. "I've had enough of your lies and whining! You can't even answer a simple question!"

Kirill hastens after him as he climbs the stairs. "Papa, I –"

His father suddenly turns around to face him on the first landing, his eyes hard as steel, and Kirill automatically backs off a little before he catches himself. "First you have one of my men killed right under my nose, and then you can't even come up with a proper excuse! Are you a _vor_ or not?"

"I am!" Kirill replies, furious. His right hand clenches around the rail along the wall, his nails digging into the wood. "And he was a traitor! A fucking informant!"

"And yet," his father says coldly, and Kirill sees how his fingers curl into fists and still are shaking with badly controlled rage, "you did not tell me you knew about this, and never asked my opinion. Not a word from you. My own son. Look at Luzhin, at least _he_ has some sense."

"He said I was right!" Kirill shouts. "You heard him!" The sleeve of his sweater, only half rolled up, is slowly slipping down along his left forearm, but he ignores it. "He was a traitor! Why the bloody fucking hell didn't anyone dispose of him before?"

"You watch your language!" his father snaps. "And don't you dare question my judgement!" He suddenly descends a few steps, but Kirill forces himself not to move, to keep his ground. Fight him, you pathetic little louse, he inwardly yells at himself, fight him! Clenching his teeth, he lets his father approach until he stands just two steps above him. "How does he know about it, anyway? Can't you even keep your big mouth shut in my own backyard, you half-wit?"

He speaks to me as if I were scum, not his son, Kirill thinks. As if I were some filthy little servant of his. The thought pierces his awareness like a knife. "I know fucking well what to say and what not! He told you, you heard him! He has contact with the fucking Chechen clan who do the export, that's how he knows!" And I will fucking talk as I fucking like, he mentally adds. I've heard the same from you, you goddamn hypocrite.

His father's hand shoots out to grab the front of his sweater, and all he can do is try not to recoil, but to stand upright and face his father's rage. If this could just be over... "And what were those lies you claim Soyka was spreading about you?" his father asks in a dangerous low snarl.

Fresh fury boils up in him, making his muscles tense as he glares up into his father's eyes, bitterly aware that they are the same colour as his own, the very same, and yet his father thinks he is nothing like him. "That was between Soyka and me," he answers firmly. "Now they're as dead as him." He does not like his own wording, and he fears he just sounded like a defiant child, but at least he has not given in. He does not want to give in, not anymore. Be a grown man, he commands himself, be strong now. And for the blessing of hell, don't cry. Just don't cry! But he can feel it already, that stinging sensation in his eyes that announces tears forming, tears of hurt and humiliation, tears of helpless rage. And once again he is disgusted at himself, loathes himself for his own weakness.

Why did you have to tell him, Nikolai? Why?

Yet at the same time he knows that it probably was the wisest thing to do.

But still… You betrayed me, Nikolai. You stabbed me in the back.

"You will tell me," his father demands icily, his eyes as cold as his voice.

"No." Never, never will he repeat those filthy lies! Especially not in front of his father!

"You will tell me!" His father has taken him by the front of his sweater with both hands now and is shaking him violently.

It takes all his courage. "No!" Better defy his father and suffer for it than admit something as shameful as this.

Very suddenly his father pushes him backwards, and he stumbles down three steps, his elbow colliding with the wall painfully. Before he has time to recover, his father has followed and grabbed him once again, pinning him to the wall. "You be glad I don't have the time to take this shit from you!" he bellows. "One more act of disobedience from you, boy, and you will rue the day you were born, you mark my words! Now send in your driver, and get out of my eyes!"

His vision blurring as he cannot fight back the tears anymore, he yanks himself loose and storms out, the blood pounding madly in his ears. Behind him, he believes to hear his father shouting after him, but he slams the door to the kitchen and rushes through, glad not to have encountered anyone. Just out, away from his father, away from shame and humiliation. Back to Nikolai, who would never treat him this way.

Nikolai, who has just told his father everything.

Kirill stops in the doorway, angrily wiping his eyes with his sleeve.

Well, Nikolai was right.

He sighs. At least he has managed not to cry in front of his father, though it was close.

Steeling himself, he pushes himself away from the wall and determinedly walks out into the yard. Just as he steps out, Nikolai comes towards him with a crate, but he deposits it on the ground when he sees him, right by the kitchen entrance. "Alright, Kirill?" he asks softly, his features gentle with what might be called compassion.

Kirill manages a laugh, one that sounds bitter to his own ears. "Do I fucking look alright?" He tugs his sweater down, but it changes nothing. His elbow still hurts, and so do his nose and cheek, where his father has punched him earlier on. And there is a greater pain within, inside his chest, abuse of trust, loss of belief in a dream.

Get over that illusion, he tells himself. He will never be like he used to, back then when you were a boy, when he tousled your hair and called you Kiryusha, when he told you stories and taught you to play the violin, when he let you sit on his lap and held you tight… Never again. This time is past and will not come back.

And don't you dare pity me, Nikolai. Don't you dare.

Once again he feels tears forming in his eyes, tears for a childhood that was over all too soon, for a mother he has never truly been able to bid goodbye to, for a father who has forgotten him.

"Try not to mind him," Nikolai says gently, briefly touching his shoulder. "He's just trying to sow discord between us. He's trying to make you jealous, and to humiliate you at the same time."

A solitary tear drips onto Kirill's cheek, and he wipes it off violently. "I don't need you to tell me that!" he snarls. "Why are you all treating me like an imbecile?" The next moment he wants to take it back, but it is too late already, the words are there, solid and tangible in the air between them like a wall. But Nikolai just looks at him and says nothing, nothing at all. "He wants to see you, by the way," Kirill adds brusquely. "So you don't even have to get off your fucking high horse for now. Go and prove to him you'd make a better son." And with this he brushes past him resolutely and marches off, leaving Nikolai to stand where he is. "Fuck you," he mutters, but it comes out as a half-choked squeak as tears begin to flow freely down over his face.

He heads for the storeroom, gladly entering its gloom. At least he will be alone here. Alone at last. Oh, how he wishes to be all alone in the world! Not to ever see anyone again would be such a blessing.

From the twilight a low growl greets him, and a pair of eyes weakly glow in the darkness.

"Piss off," he tells the dog, his voice shaking disgustingly, then sits down at the foot of a pillar with his arms wrapped around his knees and lets his forehead drop onto his right elbow, nuzzling his face into his own arm, into the woolly fabric of his sweater. He cannot keep himself from crying, even if he bites his lip hard.

It is not sadness that makes him cry. Usually it is helpless fury, and shame and frustration at himself. He does not cry often, but when it happens, it is very hard to fight it. And it is hard to get over it, too. It is so hard to stop.

A moist, cold nose touches his ear, nudging him gently. "Piss off," he repeats. "Piss off, damn you!" But the dog will not go away. Instead, he starts licking what he can reach of his cheek.

At first Kirill wants to hit him and chase him away, but then again…

At least someone who likes me.

The dog's fur is very soft under his fingers. Short, but still very soft. Kirill often marvels at how soft an animal's fur can be. He likes animals, altogether. He likes them more than humans. Humans are hypocrites and liars and conceited bastards and always complicated. Animals are simple and honest.

As he starts stroking him, the dog sits down closely beside him, and Kirill can hear his tail whipping the floor as he wags. Yes, the dog likes him, for some reason.

"What am I to you?" he asks softly, barely registering that he has been quarrelling with the others in Russian but is speaking English with the dog, for some reason. The flow of his tears is less strong now, and his voice is much firmer. "You're my father's. You're not supposed to like me. You're not supposed to like anyone, except him." He sighs, starting to scratch the dog's ears. "But you don't like him either, right? He beats you too, doesn't he? He doesn't like anyone, my father, except the children, and my sisters perhaps. Maybe he liked you when you were a puppy. He used to like me when I was a little boy, you know. I think he really did. He made me bow and arrows once, when I was small, and a kind of headband with feathers in it. That took him a lot of time, actually. And when we came here, he bought me all kinds of things I didn't have back home." He sighs. "I'm calling it home, but I don't really know… This is home, really. I've spent most of my life here. The last time I've seen Moscow was almost ten years ago. Ten fucking years, just imagine. You weren't even born then. And when I was there, I didn't recognise it. I mean, yes, I did, but it was different. The pictures in my head were different, see? That's pretty tough, you come back after a long time, and then you see your memories aren't real at all, and you've just been dreaming. Home's not real. Nothing is." He pauses, thinking about those last two words, and even the movement of his fingers slows for a moment. "Yes, sometimes it really seems nothing is. You know, if you were asleep and having a dream, how could you tell it's a dream when you're not waking up? Just like in _The Matrix_, heh. That one was sort of cool, only the sequels got weirder and weirder. Anyway, my point is, you wouldn't know, would you? Sometimes I wish I'd wake up. Not that I know what that would be like, but sometimes I think anything is better than this, anything. So I'm just waiting for someone to wake me, God or whoever… _Hold my breath as I wish for death, oh please, God, wake me…_ That's Metallica, you know. Song's called _One_, the album's _And Justice For All_, from 1988. That one's about a dying soldier in a military hospital. Took me long to figure that out, though it's fairly obvious really. Well, maybe I was a bit of a dunce with that. Not that it matters to you, you're just a dog. Not that anything I say matters to you. You just listen to my voice because it soothes you, like a purring cat is soothing, and you want me to keep talking no matter what I say, don't you? Yes, you want me to. You keep wagging, I keep talking and scratching your ears. Deal. Not that I get much from it, mind you, but there's something like immaterial values and stuff. Don't ask me – well, you won't, anyway."

He stretches out his legs, trying to find a more comfortable position on the hard floor, and immediately the dog lies down beside him with his front paws over them. Kirill laughs softly. His tears have subsided by now. "Ah, you. You're called Ivan, aren't you? What a dumb name for a dog. I think I'll call you… I dunno. Nikolai is better at this sort of thing. I'd name you after the werewolf captain from _The Silmarillion_, from the tale of Beren and Lúthien, but I've forgotten his name. It's something like Glaurung, I think, only Glaurung is the dragon, and he's in the Túrin story… I'll have to ask Nikolai, he knows all that. He's a real fucking hardcore fan. He even has an Elvish tattoo." Kirill smiles into the gloom. Yes, he is still angry with Nikolai, but even that is melting away as he thinks of this very original touch of individuality. "I think I'll call you Vulturus. I don't really know who that is, but it's from the new Metallica album, the title of a song or something. Can't be sure, since it's not out yet, and there's no release date either, as far as I know. Yes, I think I'll call you Vulturus. Like it?" He chuckles as the dog stretches up his head to let him scratch him under the chin. "Fine, you'll be Vulturus to me from now on."

"Kirill?" It is Nikolai's voice, out in the yard. "Kirill?"

Should he answer? He hesitates, but already he feels the dog's muscles tense as there are footsteps at the entrance to the storeroom, behind his back. The dog growls, but he pats his back and the dog falls silent once more, resting head and front paws across Kirill's lap while Kirill tugs at his ears thoughtlessly. At least the dog seems to have learned not to bark at Nikolai anymore. This is definitely something.

Does he really want to see Nikolai now? Can he bear to look him in the eyes? He is not sure.

"There you are." Nikolai squats down beside him. He must have heard him before, for he is addressing him in English now, and he usually does not do this unless Kirill speaks English first. "It's okay. I think he's gotten over his tantrum. Are you alright?"

"Fine," Kirill says, already grinning at his friend's choice of words, though some anger remains, anger at Nikolai being the one to settle this affair with his father, not him. "Really fine. Meet my friend. I've just named him Vulturus."

"Like Scary Guy Vulturus? Nice choice." Nikolai laughs, and Kirill smiles, though he still will not look at him. This is another thing he likes about Nikolai: that he is interested in anything that interests Kirill. Sergei and Misha like movies, and so did Soyka, but they don't precisely share Kirill's taste, and neither of them knows much about metal music. But Nikolai does. Nikolai cares. And in turn, Kirill cares about what Nikolai likes.

This is a sign of friendship, isn't it? Of real friendship.

Kirill takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry." It is said much easier than he expected.

"For what?"

"For being such an arsehole just now." Doesn't Nikolai realise, or does he just want to hear him say it? Suspicion arises in him, but he smothers it. No, Nikolai would not torment him, and Nikolai would not gloat.

"Ah, that." Nikolai briefly touches his shoulder. "Forget about it. It's okay."

"Just like that?" Surely he will bear a grudge because of it. Anyone would.

"You're my captain," Nikolai reminds him.

"But I still was a complete arsehole." Now he has apologised, it is so much easier. It does not hurt him to admit it, it does not hurt him at all. It actually feels good in a way, relieving perhaps, to be able to say it.

Moreover, that Nikolai asserts him that he is in charge also helps. This way, he is not looking up to him, begging for his forgiveness. He can just tell him face to face. Except that he still will not look at him, silly as it is.

"And you're my partner. My friend," Nikolai adds, in a tone as plain and natural as if he were discussing the weather.

That makes it worse, Kirill thinks. It's not the kind of thing one should say to a friend, especially not when all he is trying to do is to be nice. "Yes," he murmurs, feeling awkward and foolish. "You're my friend, too." Somehow a hug would be appropriate now, but he cannot quite get himself to do it, even though he would like to. He has hugged Nikolai before, many times, but it always was playful, never in a serious manner. He distractedly tugs at the dog's ears, pretending he could not get up to do anything anyway, but in truth he could, and Nikolai knows that he could.

Yes, but Nikolai has no idea what he is thinking, or does he?

He pats the dog's head. "Good doggy," he says, just to say anything. Why does this feel so awkward? It should not. Why can he take girls to bed without the slightest hint of a blush, and then he feels so embarrassed when talking to a friend? It should be a lot less emotional, shouldn't it?

No, it isn't. It should, perhaps, but it isn't, because the girls mean nothing to him, whereas Nikolai does.

"What did my father want with you?" he changes the topic, changing the language at the same time. "Question you? He's been asking stuff about you before."

"I know. You told me." The dog raises his head suspiciously as Nikolai moves closer, but Kirill soothingly strokes his muzzle. "Yes, he wanted to take a closer look, I think. I managed to impress him by not being scared of Soyka's brothers."

"Soyka's fucking brothers!" Kirill laughs derisively. "I have you, and you're better than any fucking Chechen." And he means it, he truly means it. Nikolai is the best man he ever worked with, no doubt of it. "Hey, Vulturus, get off me. I have to deal with a couple of boxes."

"I'll handle it," Nikolai offers, but Kirill has already gotten back to his feet. "Might look better, in case your father comes to check."

"He can go fuck himself," Kirill says roughly, speaking English once again. "Let's stack up this shit where it belongs. No, Vulturus, you stay here. You have something to guard, remember? Yes, until Misha arrives with the van. Stay here, do you hear? There's a good boy." The dog obliges, but it is obvious that he would have preferred to plod after Kirill. "That's some of the import stuff," Kirill reveals, automatically lowering his voice a fraction. "We had a problem with the transportation, it didn't go according to schedule. Misha'll get it to the distribution point now."

"And where is that?" Nikolai asks as they step out into the grey light of the day.

"Don't ask too many questions. You're not a _vor_ yet, pal."

Nikolai shrugs. He accepts such answers, but it does not mean that he gives up. He just tries to figure it out later on, and he is very patient. Sometimes Kirill finds this extremely amusing.

"There was something else," Nikolai says as they reach the van. "Your father wants me to do a small job for him."

"Really?" Kirill is not surprised at all. He has had an employee before, until the man was shot, and his father has used him for some business of his own as well, without asking. "What would that be?"

Nikolai glances around the open back door of the van before answering. "It's about that pregnant girl who bolted."

"Tatiana, you mean? Forgot her last name. Papa told me she's dead."

"She is. But apparently she left a diary."

"Oh, shit."

"Yes, exactly. I'm to go and retrieve it."

"Do you think it says something about me?" Kirill remembers the girl only too well, a sandy-haired, quite pretty thing, probably one of the youngest among their girls, and he particularly remembers one incident connected with her…

_Sergei and Boris are dragging the struggling girl off, pushing her down the stairs to the cellar, and Kirill turns away from the dark door from where muffled screams come. He knows what is going to happen now, and it gives him a constricting, sickening feeling. Instead, he downs another shot of vodka. He might call Charlie now, his old mate from his school days, and they might go to the cinema or something. Or perhaps he could drag his new driver along to the pubs and see what kind of man he is, that might be an interesting idea…_

_"Kirill," his father says, suddenly coming up behind him, and he expects a reproach for touching his father's bottle – damn it, he hasn't had a drop of alcohol all day, so just a shot really isn't so much to ask, or two, to be exact, whatever, no matter from which bottle! – but nothing of the like happens. Instead his father says, "Go down and break her in."_

_"W… what?" Kirill stammers. "Me? But… I'm totally not in the mood."_

_"Break her in," his father repeats. "And don't pretend I'm asking anything difficult of you."_

_"Papa, please," he tries. "I doubt if I could right now, I really –"_

_"Are you a man," his father interrupts harshly, "or are you not?"_

_Kirill swallows. He has no choice. If at least he could drain the bottle first… but no chance of that, not with his father watching. He will have to do it, and he will have to do it sober._

_As he climbs down the stairs, he curses to himself in a mixture of English and Russian, his usual mixture. Why? Why just him? Disgust and anger are fighting for the upper hand inside his chest. That one's just a little girl, for whichever deity's sake!_

_The light in the cellar is scarce, but his eyes adapt to the twilight very quickly, too quickly for his own taste. The girl is lying on a pile of potato sacks, struggling with Boris, who is trying to rip her clothes off, while Sergei is watching with one hand playing around at his crotch, grinning to himself. What a sick voyeur, Kirill thinks. He approaches slowly and quietly, hoping that by the time they spot him, they will have gotten her out of her clothes and she will have given up her resistance. Or maybe he can leave this all to Boris? Maybe he can just stand around with Sergei while Boris rapes her?_

_Her dress comes off practically in rags, revealing her white underwear. The girl is kicking around and half screaming, half sobbing, but it is of no use. Boris is so much stronger, a tall man with broad shoulders and the neck of an ox – and probably the intellect of an ox, too, Kirill thinks. Sergei is shorter and slimmer, and he definitely is the more intelligent of those two. Kirill likes him more, but he does not like him much, either. Now Boris tears her bra off – why does she wear a bra anyway, Kirill wonders briefly, she hardly needs one, but that's girls to you – and Sergei guffaws like a drunken buffoon._

_And then Sergei spots Kirill. "Hey, there's someone else to do the job. Someone higher-ranking."_

_Boris looks up, grunts and steps aside obediently, bowing his head. What a servile coward. But he does not turn to leave, and neither does Sergei. Do they think he will actually rape that thing with them watching? "Get out of sight," he tells them harshly. "Both of you."_

_They leave without a word of protest, and soon he hears the door upstairs close behind them. The only sound that remains is the sobbing of the girl in front of him._

_This is so sick. So goddamn sick. She's just a child._

_And only now she notices that he has arrived, and that she now is alone with him. She has retreated to the farthest corner as soon as Boris has let go of her, and now she cowers there and watches him out of large, scared eyes, like a trapped animal. "You're Kirill, aren't you?" she asks tentatively, her voice thin and shaking. "You're Oleg's cousin."_

_"Yes." He starts unbuckling his belt, and her eyes widen. If there were just the familiar feeling of his erection straining against his trousers… but this situation does not stimulate him, not at all._

_"Please. Please don't do this." Tears are running down her cheeks, and she is trembling. "Please."_

_Oh God. I wish I didn't have to… "It will be over soon if you just keep still, okay? Just relax. It won't take long."_

_"Please, Kirill. Please. Oleg said you were a nice guy."_

_"Oleg's an arsehole." He unzips his fly, but still he feels no arousal. "Come here."_

_"Please don't do this to me."_

_"Just shut up, will you?" he snarls. I can't do this, I just can't do this. "Come here and keep still." He tries to imagine someone else in her place, a grown woman, an attractive dark-haired brauty with full breasts and voluptuous lips, which are slightly parted in expectation of him kissing her… He pulls his T-shirt over his head and throws it onto a crate nearby, imagining the woman's hands running all over his torso, caressing his chest and stomach… It helps a little, but not much._

_"Kirill…" Her voice is choked by her own tears._

_"Do as you're told," he orders harshly. "Now." The air is chilly in the cellar, but he does not put his T-shirt back on. If she chooses to fight, it might end up torn, and it is a_ Star Wars _T-shirt, with a picture of Darth Vader printed on it. He likes it. Moreover, it was a present from Maria, bought with her own pocket money._

_"No. Please, Kirill. Please."_

_Damn it, do you think I'm having fun here, you stupid brat? He grabs her by the arm and violently pulls her towards him, ignoring her shriek. "Just do it!" he bellows. She tries to bite his hand, and he hits her in the face hard. With a howl she recoils, and immediately he is over her, forcing her down on her back. She is attempting to push him away, scratching him with her fingernails, but he slaps her hands away and hits her again, once, twice, three times. His knuckles hurt from connecting with her cheekbone hard, and the last time they meet the side of her jaw instead because she manages to half block the blow. But he hardly feels any pain. He only sees the blood oozing from her nose and split lip, and it makes him feel nauseous._

_Now she merely sobs, trying to cover her face with her hands, and he uses the opportunity to quickly remove her panties. He should do it now, force himself into her and be done with it, but he cannot. The idea repulses him too much, and no image of a beautiful woman in his mind can help him._

_But he has to. Because if he fails, his father is bound to beat him to within an inch of his life._

_Determinedly he fidgets with the fly of his boxers, doing his best to block out the girl's sobs from his awareness. How is he to achieve anything when she's crying under him? He tries stroking himself, but what usually results in a desire growing instantly now leaves him as limp as he was. It just will not work this time._

_"Just shut up!" he hisses at the girl in helpless fury. "Stop crying, damn you!" And when she keeps sobbing, he hits her again. There is nothing else he could do that comes to his mind. If she would just be quiet, maybe he would manage to do it. "Look, if you're quiet, we'll be done with it a lot sooner," he tries to reason with her, but it is of no use. "So shut it, will you?" He will just enter her for a moment and then tell his father he's finished, there is no need for more, but he cannot bring himself to do even that._

_And she must realise by now what is troubling him. She must realise he is utterly unable to get an erection._

_The shame, the humiliation of it… Cursing, he slaps her with the back of his hand, again and again. Why does she have to put him through this? Why? "Shut up!" he bellows, but she will not, she cannot, and he cannot stop either, he has to do this, has to do this or face his father's wrath, and if she would only stop sobbing like this, if she only –_

_"Kirill!" It is his father's voice, and he winces at it. He has not heard him coming. "What's the matter? Still not done with her?" he demands, impatience very obvious in his tone._

_"I'm doing it," he protests. "Can't you see I'm doing it?" Maybe he could produce the same effect by forcing a finger into her, or rather two or three, it occurs to him. The prospect sickens him as well, but then it would be over and done with very quickly. If it works, that is._

_His father takes him by the shoulder roughly. "Get away," he commands. "Leave her to me."_

_He obeys, hastily doing up his trousers, and his father brushes him aside violently, contempt clearly written on his features. As he sees his father starting to undo his own trousers, Kirill quickly turns to go, snatching up his T-shirt and hurrying up the stairs, and he hears his father shouting after him, "If you don't break a horse, it will never be tame, Kirill!"_

_He practically stumbles out through the door, slamming it behind him. His hands shake as he pulls his T-shirt back on. He feels disgusted, and humiliated at the same time, because in the eyes of his father he has failed, failed utterly and terribly._

_He punches the doorframe hard, and almost howls with the sudden pain shooting through his hand. Storming out, he hopes for anyone to run afoul of him so he can channel his desperate wrath into something, rage and be rid of it, but he does not meet anybody until he reaches the main room of the restaurant, deserted except for two of his father's men sitting in a corner and talking quietly. And his driver is there, the unreadable man with a criminal career that would make a leading vor proud written onto his body, and he is reading a book peacefully, as if nothing were out of the ordinary at all, as if that foul scene at the cellar had never taken place. As Kirill approaches, he gazes up questioningly._

_"What's this shit?" he snaps, snatching the book out of the man's tattooed hands._

_Luzhin merely looks at him, his greyish-blue eyes as devoid of emotion as always._

_Only then he realises that this is the second volume of_ The Lord of the Rings_. "Hey!" he exclaims, genuinely surprised. "I hope you didn't nick that from my room."_

_Luzhin shakes his head. "My own copy. I had only read it in Russian until now, and I thought it was about time I tackled the original."_

_"Funny," Kirill states, letting himself slump into a chair opposite him. "I only ever read it in English. What are you giving me that look for?" he adds, faintly irritated. "Did you think I can't read or what?"_

_Luzhin shrugs. "I didn't expect you to know it."_

_"You're in England, man. Everybody does." Kirill hands him the book back. After all, he really has his own copy._

_"How about_ The Silmarillion_?"_

_Kirill frowns. "Hang on… the background mythology thing? Nah, not yet."_

_"You should."_

_"If you say so." Anything, as long as the man keeps him distracted. "You seem to be quite the fan, eh?"_

_It is the first time he sees Luzhin genuinely laugh. "Didn't you spot my Elvish tattoo, then?"_

Kirill smiles faintly at the memory of this conversation, though it cannot quite drown out the nauseating sensation in the pit of his stomach that the memory of Tatiana causes.

Nikolai shrugs. "Does it matter? I'll take care of it."

"You do that." Kirill briefly places a hand on his arm. He is glad Nikolai is there to take care of everything. When Nikolai agrees to handle an affair, there is no reason to worry. "Come on, back to work."

And still the unease remains, an unease that makes him go cold inside.


	3. Watched and Judged

_Why am I loved only when I'm gone?  
Gone back in time to bless the child  
Think of me long enough to make a memory  
Come bless the child one more time_

_How can I ever feel again?  
Given the chance, would I return?_

-Nightwish, Bless the Child

* * *

"Tackle him from behind. Yes, steady now… steady… stay on target… _Now_."

The figure on the screen, clad in red and white and riding a broomstick, pulls into a dive and snatches the Quaffle out from under the arm of a player of the opposing team. Maria gives a whoop of triumph.

"Well done," Kirill says. "Hey, keep your eyes on the screen."

"Argh!" The player barely dodges the other's attempt to win the Quaffle back.

"Careful, you're going for your own goalposts."

"Whoops." The player turns and zigzags in the other direction, pursued by another, a figure clad in yellow. "I forgot how to do the combo."

"Twice the One or Three, depending on whether you want left or right, and the left upper trigger. Hold the trigger to gather some force."

"Thanks." Maria looks away from the screen, at the dark blue and black USB game controller in her hands. "One, One… and pass!" The Quaffle starts to glow red as she presses and holds the trigger, then is tossed forward forcefully. For a moment it seems to be suspended in midair on its flight forward, then another player in red and white shoots upwards to catch it. "Yes!"

"Careful," Kirill warns. "Bludger."

Immediately Maria squeals and pushes the game controller at him. "You do it!"

"You'll never learn it that way."

"Please!"

"Oh, alright." The pair of Beaters have already taken their defence position beside the red and white Chaser marked with the pale yellow star-shaped frame that shows he is the active player, and the Bludger, a dark dot trailed with a hue of bluish violet on the screen, is coming towards them swiftly. For a moment Kirill just watches it, then he lets the player spiral by twirling the left analogue stick of the controller with his thumb. The Bludger, programmed to follow the motions of the Chaser in possession of the Quaffle, slows down considerably, and Kirill lets his Chaser pull out of the spiralling manoeuvre and swerve sideways sharply. Mirroring this move, the Beaters turn as well, and Kirill makes sure that one of them comes close enough to the Bludger to beat it to the other end of the pitch with his club. The pass lock is lifted as soon as the Bludger is out of the way, he knows it, so he immediately passes the Quaffle on to one of his other Chasers. The goalposts, three high hoops guarded by the opposing team's Keeper, are very close now, and he heads straight for them. In the difficulty level Maria has chosen, he does not even find it necessary to perform any manoeuvres to dodge other players, he simply speeds towards the hoop on the far left, then turns sharply as the Keeper moves to block, racing towards the one on the far right and throwing the Quaffle from a distance that would be highly risky in even the second level, but in this one the players are extremely slow for his taste. As the player on the screen scores easily, he hands the controller back. "Here you go."

"Cool!" Maria beams. "Thanks."

Kirill leans back and smiles as the girl continues playing. She clearly is improving, starting to develop quicker reactions and a much steadier hand. Soon she will be able to play _Quidditch__ World Cup_ without his assistance, and on a higher difficulty level. And soon she will not need his help any longer for all her other beloved _Harry Potter_ video games. Her mother, Kirill's elder sister, does not really approve of Kirill teaching her how to play, but then again she has bought part of the games herself for her daughter, knowing fully well that at first it would be Kirill who would play them, with Maria watching and cheering him on, so she should not complain.

The door opens immediately after a very brief knock, and his father enters. It is surprising that he knocks at all, Kirill thinks. "Mashenka, darling, you should be in bed."

"But Grandpa," Maria protests, "can't I finish the match first? Mama and Papa won't be around for some time, anyway."

"But just this match, alright?" His eyes seem to harden as he looks at Kirill. "Bring her to bed afterwards."

"I will, Papa," Kirill says automatically.

"I scored!" Maria calls out in triumph. "Grandpa, I scored!"

His father smiles. "Well done, my angel." And already the smile has disappeared again. "Kirill, I just had a word with your driver. A good man, very useful. Can be trusted with simple tasks."

"I know," Kirill says, not without pride. "And not only with simple tasks. I'd trust Nikolai with my life."

Why does his father frown at this? What is the matter with him?

"Oh, Nikolai is great," Maria puts in, her eyes glued to the screen. "He came along to the cinema last week."

"He did?" Why is his father raising his eyebrows at him like that?

"Well, I couldn't let him wait outside for three hours or so, could I now?" Kirill shrugs. Technically he could, but that would seem extremely rude to him. After all, Nikolai is not just a driver, he is his friend.

His father is still mustering him with an oddly suspicious kind of look, and Kirill angrily wonders what he has done wrong yet again. Once he has brought Maria to bed, he will ask Nikolai what was going on just now. After all, Nikolai will surely wait for him downstairs and not just disappear.

"I scored again!" Maria proclaims proudly. "With a special move, even. Did you see it?"

"Sure. That was the somersault." Kirill has barely registered what was going on on the computer screen, but now Maria asks, he can recall what it was. "See, you don't need me for it."

"I do," she contradicts him. "Because you're my favourite person in the world, even if Mama says you're messy and leave the toilet seat up all the time."

"That's sweet of you, baby." He leans over to kiss her cheek, and she beams at the screen, only very briefly taking her eyes from it to find the correct button on the controller. When she is concentrating on something, she can be very focused, more focused than Kirill ever was, he suspects.

From behind his father comes to run a hand through her hair, and she adds, "I love you too, Grandpa."

There is a knock at the door, and Kirill recognises the knock: discreet yet determined. "Come right in, Kolya," he calls over his shoulder.

The door opens and Nikolai enters, still perfectly dressed in his dark Armani suit. He bows his head in greeting as he sees that Kirill's father is there, and takes his place next to the door, holding his left hand with his right as so often when he is waiting patiently, doing his best to blend in with the environment. One might expect him to put on his sunglasses, Kirill thinks with amusement. "Take a seat, you clown. Where do you think you are, before court or what?"

Nikolai gives him a tiny smile. "With your permission." He looks around, but since all available chairs are either occupied or else, in the case of the third that would be there, used to pile up freshly laundered shirts and underwear, he sits down on the edge of the bed, shrugging.

"Since when do you ask my permission, goof?" Kirill laughs, and so does Maria, but his father is – no, not quite frowning. It is far more subtle than that. But he practically radiates disapproval as his gaze flickers between his son and Nikolai.

What's the fucking matter with you? Kirill feels like shooting this question at him, but then again, it never is a good idea to provoke him. Does he think one should not speak to one's driver like one would speak to a friend? Well, Nikolai _is_ a friend, so why should he treat him any differently? He sees no need to, even if Nikolai acts as awkwardly as a schoolboy confronted with a pretty woman suddenly.

"The Snitch!" Maria cries. And indeed, the tiny golden ball with the silver wings has appeared, as has the golden trail that shows the player which way to follow. Maria accelerates, and the red and white Seeker speeds along the trail, zigzagging to and fro, with the yellow Seeker in hot pursuit.

"Keep him steady," Kirill counsels. "You're losing speed."

"He's a she," Maria corrects him.

"Alright, keep _her_ steady. In the middle of the trail."

"I'm trying." For some time the sounds coming from the video game are the only sounds in the room. With a hand tenderly placed on the top of the girl's head, even Kirill's father is watching, and Kirill wonders how much knowledge about the _Harry Potter_ universe she has yet managed to cram into his head. Unlike Kirill, he has not read any of the books yet, but if Maria keeps trying, it will only be a matter of time, he assumes.

As was to be expected, Maria thrusts the controller into Kirill's hands as soon as the opposing Seeker overtakes hers, and Kirill finishes the game for her, and Maria leaps onto his lap and hugs him tight as he catches the Snitch for her. Laughing, he gives her a squeeze. "Come on, baby, bedtime."

"Can't I listen to a bit of music first?"

"Tomorrow." If his father were not there, he would allow her to pick a goodnight song, but his father would not approve, he is pretty sure. "Whatever you like."

Maria slips off his lap. "Promise?"

"Promise," he confirms.

"I'll take her to bed," his father offers, but somehow it seems to Kirill that he is watching him. Or is he just being paranoid?

"That's alright, Papa, I'll do it." And no matter if he was just watching him or not, this would have been his answer even if he had not had this thought.

His father gives him a smile, and he answers it gratefully. "You should have an early night, too. You've had a busy week."

"Yes, Papa, I think I will. I just need a word with Nikolai first. About tomorrow," he adds, feeling the newly arisen suspicion more than actually seeing it. "I'm sure you know what I'm talking about." And so does Nikolai, of course, but Maria should not hear what it is they are doing. She is far too young, and too innocent.

His father nods. "It would be best if you started out early."

Kirill gives him a tentative little grin. "How early is early?"

"You lazy boy." For once, the reproach is very mild. "You ought to be leaving at six, or seven at the very latest."

Maria groans sympathetically.

"Fine," Kirill sighs, eager to please his father after the whole nasty Soyka affair and its results. "Six it shall be. Heard that, Nikolai?"

"I did."

"That means I'll have to be up at five," Kirill thinks aloud. "Or better yet, four thirty, just to be sure. Maybe it would be best if you slept here."

Nikolai shrugs. He has gotten up again and is standing in the same pose as before, his hands crossed in front of his belt buckle. "Don't bother about me, I'll be here in time."

"Well, it's no trouble at all," Kirill insists. "We'll just drag you a mattress in here."

And then he notices that his father is frowning again.

Luckily Maria changes the topic. "Where are you going tomorrow?"

"To one of Grandpa's suppliers," Kirill explains. "For a discussion of business." It's not even a lie. "Come on, you should get ready for bed. Nikolai, wait here." He has been very close to calling him Kolya once more, but from now on he will try not to do so again when his father is listening.

He bids his father goodnight on the corridor outside, tentatively giving him a hug, yet while his father pats his back briefly, his stance is very wooden, and Kirill seriously wonders what is wrong. Maria gets a goodnight kiss, then his father departs heading downstairs.

Kirill takes Maria to the bathroom and makes sure she brushes her teeth and washes her face before changing into her pyjamas. Then he brings her to her bedroom, tucks her in and kisses her goodnight, and as she smiles up at him, her eyelids are drooping already. A look at his watch tells him it is past ten o'clock, high time for her to be asleep.

Returning to his own room, he already pulls his T-shirt over his head in the corridor. Maybe he should take a shower now, so he will not have to get up quite as early?

Nikolai is comfortably sitting on the bed this time, his tie loosened and his jacket discarded. The change of attitude is quite remarkable. When someone else is around, Nikolai practically acts like a stranger. "What was that fuss about?" Kirill teases him. "Afraid I might paint your toenails pink while you're asleep?"

Nikolai waits with his answer until Kirill has not only pulled the door shut behind him, but also come as close as a few steps. "It's your father. Haven't you noticed how he was looking at us?"

Kirill shrugs, wondering if he should wear the T-shirt again the next day and deciding against it. "He doesn't like us to be pals, apparently. Thinks I should use more authority. All over the place. Just to make _him_ look better. You don't agree with this fucking crap, or do you?"

"Kirill…" Nikolai gets up and places both hands on his shoulders, his fingers warm and gentle on his bare skin. "Look, I hate to bring this up, I really do, but this is about the rumours. About the shit Soyka was spreading."

Kirill stares at him. "You mean you told him? You told my father? You actually –"

"Hush," Nikolai says gently. "It's alright."

"No, it fucking isn't!" Kirill bellows, pushing him away roughly. "What did you have to tell him for, you damned arsehole?"

"I didn't want to, but he made me. I had to." Nikolai sighs. "Besides, he had heard it before. And if I now go home, he will think no more of it."

"Yes he will!" Kirill growls. "He fucking will!"

"Look, it's just the usual insults," Nikolai reasons. "When we give him nothing he could possibly interpret as a clue, he won't waste a thought on it in a week's time. Besides, he dislikes Soyka anyway."

Kirill groans and lets himself fall onto the bed heavily. "So I can't come closer than four feet to you, or what? This is so fucking stupid."

"Of course it's fucking stupid." Nikolai sits down beside him and places an arm around his shoulders, and he does not shake him off. After this revelation, with the perspective of at least another week of his father's grudge ahead, it feels good to have someone close to him, and he is very tempted to rest his head on Nikolai's shoulder, but he decides against it. What if Nikolai is slowly growing suspicious too?

Oh, how he hates Soyka, how he loathes his memory!

"Normally I'd accept your offer gladly," Nikolai continues. "I wouldn't even mind sleeping in the same bed with you, as long as you don't kick around in your sleep and pull the blanket away, that is." He chuckles. "But for tactical reasons, I suggest I sleep at my own place this time."

Kirill nods numbly, convinced. Why does his father have to be so stupid? There is nothing wrong with sleeping in the same room with a friend! And he has not even suggested sharing his bed with him. So what else is his father's point of objection?

But Nikolai just said he would share a bed with me, he thinks. That's quite a bit of trust he's showing.

And it must be very comfortable, very warm and cuddly, falling asleep by Nikolai's side, maybe waking again in the night because his friend has stirred in his sleep and knowing everything is alright because Nikolai is still there with him to guard him and keep an eye on him, waking in the morning with his head on Nikolai's shoulder, enjoying his warmth…

Kirill pushes the thought away. He should not be picturing things like that.

But he's my friend. Just a little innocent cuddle would not make me a queer.

Still, it would not quite be how friends, even very close friends, are expected to act.

Brothers, perhaps?

But at the same time, Kirill knows that this is something else he feels, a fascination, a draw, that Nikolai is more than just a friend and brother.

Yes, he is my father also. He has taken my father's place, and he is giving me all I'll never get from my father.

As a little boy, he has sometimes crawled into his father's bed on Sunday mornings and slept a little longer in his father's arms, feeling as safe as nowhere else in the world. _There's my Kiryusha_, his father would murmur drowsily, he recalls, and hold up the blanket for him, and he would settle in and feel as sheltered as a child in his mother's womb. But these times are long past, and there is no tenderness and affection to be had from his father anymore, or only very little. But Nikolai is different; Nikolai will readily show him a brotherly fondness that he has found in no other friend until now. Nikolai feels more for him than his father does.

And he is a weakling for needing this, he thinks, repulsed at himself, but still he needs it from time to time, just like Maria sometimes just wants to sit on his lap and put her arms around his neck.

Nikolai's hand wanders over his shoulder, down his upper arm. "Forgive me, Kiryusha. At times a man only has so many choices. And yet he cannot be forced to sell his soul. Do not believe I betrayed you. I never would. One has to make sacrifices, but it does not mean to give up one's true loyalty. It lies with you, little brother, and it always will."

Kirill tries to find an answer to this, but there is no appropriate one coming to his mind, not for such strong, beautiful words. Instead, he rests his head against Nikolai's in a gesture of companionship and trust, and Nikolai keeps stroking his shoulder. He understands him without words, Kirill feels, and in return there is a promise in the gentle touch of his hand, a confirmation of the promise he has spoken aloud before.

And Nikolai does not mind touching his naked skin. That proves he does not consider him a queer, or else he would certainly not do it. Well, to be exact, Nikolai has never yet shown any reluctance about taking off his clothes in front of him, either – not that he regularly does it, but he has never yet hesitated on the couple of occasions where it was logical for him to do so, like when coming back drenched with sweat and in need for a shower.

A shower, oh yes. That is what he has had in mind for now, actually. "Do you think it's suspicious if you're still here while I take a shower?" He should get up now, but he prefers to have Nikolai's arm around him for a little longer.

"Definitely," Nikolai says. "Especially when you call stuff from the bathroom again, like _get the fuck in here and turn the heater on, I'm freezing my arse off_."

They both laugh at this. "But it really was chilly," Kirill protests. "And I was wet. Besides, how is my father to know if I'm dressed in a towel or not? _Come in here and help me look for my towel, I'm naked and freezing_ would be much worse, wouldn't it?"

"Apparently he has to protect me from the sight of a naked man," Nikolai states in his usual sarcastic tone, making Kirill grin. "Do you think I could bear the shock?"

"Probably not. You'd die of it."

"Then I'd better be off before you take any more clothes off," Nikolai says with a little smile, getting off the bed and picking up his jacket, and Kirill feels strangely cold after he has withdrawn his arm. "I'll see you tomorrow, then, old boy."

Kirill is certain that his father listens somewhere for Nikolai's footsteps to descend the stairs.

After his friend has gone, he sits on his bed for some time, staring at the carpet and feeling empty inside. Finally he gives himself a mental nudge and goes to take a shower, but he is not even in the mood to sing as the warm water flows over him. All he can think of is his father, and Soyka, and all those lies, and how Nikolai's departure has left him all alone, as if he had torn a hole into the room. This is foolishness, he tells himself, and besides, he is going to see his friend again very soon, but still he misses him already.

Soon he crawls under his blanket and extinguishes the light, and the memory of Nikolai and the blond Ukrainian girl torment him with feelings of shame and guilt until he falls asleep at last.


	4. Alone

_But tell me  
Can you heal what father's done  
Or fix this hole in mother's son?  
Can you heal the broken worlds within?  
Can you strip away so we may start again?  
Can you heal what father's done  
Or cut this rope and let us run?  
Just when all seems fine and all pain-free  
Jab another pin, jab another pin in me_

-Metallica, Fixxxer

* * *

_Your father doesn't need the bottles anymore._

It feels like a physical blow he has received, a blow that has caught him right in the face and sent him staggering backwards.

On the stairs, Nikolai's footsteps fade away, and then he hears the door close with a dull, final sound. He is alone again.

He hisses a curse, but it is not enough to express the storm arising in his chest, the hurricane of fury and shame, hate and self-loathing. So often has he tried to vent all his anger into curses, but no word is obscene enough to free him of this firestorm inside him, this mad seething heat that makes him feel like he could explode.

And he is not drunk enough to hurl the bottle at the wall, not yet, anyway. Soon he might be, he thinks as he takes another swig. Or he might drain the whole bottle and pass out, and maybe Nikolai will find him after he has died of alcohol intoxication, and then he will be sorry. Yes, he will. But it will be too late to apologise for being so scathing, and Nikolai will regret it for the rest of his life.

But what good would that be to Kirill when he is dead at that point?

Tears of humiliation begin to form once more, but this time nobody comes to comfort him, and he refuses to savour the pleasant memory of Nikolai's warm body against his, not after Nikolai has ganged up with his father and stabbed him in the back.

He hasn't, the rational part of his mind tells him, but he will not listen to it. He wants to believe Nikolai has betrayed him, because he wants to be angry with Nikolai, and not with himself for telling such feeble lies to make himself look good. He hates himself enough already without adding stupidity to the list of what is loathsome about himself.

He roughly wipes his eyes with his sleeve and starts pacing the room, trying to breathe evenly, but it does not help, as usual. He wants to break something, to destroy something utterly.

Something, or someone.

He wants to hurt his father, really hurt him, and he wants to stand over him and gloat. And he wants to hurt Nikolai.

But at the same time, he wants Nikolai to come back and hold him tight and stroke his hair and call him _little brother_. He wants to watch his friend's hard features suddenly growing lenient as he looks at him, he wants to see the fondness in his eyes, hear the tenderness in his voice, feel the affection in his touch. He wants to be loved no matter if he fails or succeeds, by someone who knows all his strengths and weaknesses and will still stand by his side, always.

But Nikolai will not. Nikolai would rather go and join his father.

He reaches for the bottle again and takes another swig, but the alcohol does not soothe him either.

A drunk and a queer, so Soyka has called him, right in his face. The memory still increases his fury tenfold. And now his father knows, after Nikolai has told him.

But it is a lie, a filthy lie. For from now on, Kirill hates Nikolai, and he will not get drunk again. Not one damn drop of it, he tells himself as he firmly deposits the bottle on a shelf.

Instead, he sits down on the piled-up chairs once more, but gets up again immediately. He cannot stay still. His rage fuels him and keeps him on his feet, and his rage makes him forget his overwhelming sadness for a while. While the fury burns, it will turn the waves of grief to bitingly hot vapour, but when the waves become floods, they drown out the flames and wash him away, and he is lost upon a shoreless sea of despair.

Come back, Kolya. Please come back.

No. Don't you ever dare to come back. Don't you dare to speak to me again.

This is what he has always wanted, Nikolai becoming a _vor_ at last. But not like that. Not that way, with his father taking him away from him and Nikolai following another man's lead readily, using Kirill just to get to his father.

Why does this one simple wish have to become twisted and perverted when it comes true?

Again he lets himself fall down onto the chairs, but this time he pulls up his legs and wraps his arms around his knees, making himself as small as he can and wishing he could disappear into a hole, so that nobody would ever find him again. The position is uncomfortable, but what does it matter? At the moment, nothing is comfortable anyway.

No more comfort. No more.

The world would be so much better if there were no humans around, no humans at all.


	5. Promotion

_I'm leaning in the wind  
Head bowed down from what I saw  
My shadow for a friend  
Still some things are worth fighting for_

_So I'm moving on  
Asking where you might have gone  
From what I knew before  
Some things are worth fighting for_

-Judas Priest, Worth Fighting For

* * *

Kirill is sitting on the stairs, waiting. According to his watch it is past eleven, which means that he has been sitting here for over an hour already. An hour and a quarter, if he is not much mistaken.

Under different circumstances he would have brought a book from upstairs, but the solemnity the leading _vory_, his father's associates, have shown upon their arrival, and the strange dignity in Nikolai's bearing, a dignity he has somehow achieved to convey even when forced to strip down to his underwear, have kept Kirill from it, just as they have kept him from fetching a bottle to keep himself occupied. And so he just sits and waits.

The door lets no sound through. He has tried listening at it, but all there is to hear is the echo of his own blood pulsing through his veins.

He would have liked to be present, but of course he is excluded. After all, being the son of a leading _vor_ does not make him a leading _vor_ himself. Nikolai has to face them alone. All he can do is wait for his arrival, and be there for him when Nikolai comes.

But Nikolai does not need help. Nikolai can handle any situation.

Nikolai is better than him, in everything he does.

Kirill sighs and thoughtlessly twirls a strand of hair around his fingers. He wants Nikolai to be a _vor_, to truly be his brother at last, but at the same time he is aware that Nikolai is bound to eventually take his position, and that his father might only too readily accept another son in the place of the one that has turned out to be such a failure.

And again his hair is refusing to lie flat, but for once he ignores it. Among his siblings he is the only one with curly hair, but he would readily swap it for his sisters' straight hair, if that were possible. He would also prefer to be dark-haired and dark-eyed, but instead he has sandy-coloured hair and his father's bright blue eyes. Life is not fair to him even in trivial matters.

Well, at least he is tall.

He yawns and tries to find a more comfortable position. His limbs feel sore already after spending so much time sitting on the stairs. With a little groan he gets back to his feet and stretches. Why do they have to take so long?

In order not to get bored he tries if he can still remember the names of the seven sons of Fëanor from _The Silmarillion_. He keeps forgetting them, but Nikolai patiently repeats them for him every single time he asks, along with many other names from the elfish genealogy. Apparently it pleases Nikolai that he at least tries. Maedhros and Maglor, those two are easy. Celeborn, no, Celegorm. Curufin and… Caranthir, wasn't it? Yes. And the twins… Amrod and Amras? Kirill smiles to himself. At last he has managed to memorise them. Not that it is truly important, but it matters to Nikolai, and Kirill wants Nikolai to see that whatever matters to Nikolai matters to him as well. He has even thought of having the elfish word for _nine_ tattooed onto his left upper arm, just like Nikolai has it, or perhaps the Eye of Sauron. The Lidless Eye would be a splendid idea, yes. If his father asked, he could always point out that an eye is a rather common tattoo among Russian criminals and pretend it is just by chance that it looks precisely like the burning eye symbol his father has seen on the little cardboard packet of playing cards Kirill has forgotten downstairs recently.

Luckily his father has simply assumed that Kirill has been playing cards with Maria. Luckily he has not realised that his son would play a collectible card game as complicated as _Middle-earth_ only with his best friend, Nikolai. Otherwise he might have grown suspicious yet again. In his father's opinion, Kirill suspects, playing complicated card games that can potentially last for hours with one's driver is something a _vor_ simply does not do.

Well, maybe a _vor_ can do it when the driver in question is a _vor_ as well?

But now Nikolai will be a _vor_ soon – no doubt he passes the test –, will he still care about Kirill?

Kirill pictures how Nikolai serves his father instead, with the same loyalty he has shown him until now, and forgets about his former captain, and it is an ugly idea, an idea that makes him angry, but mostly sad. Without Nikolai, he would be so alone, as alone as he has been before Nikolai has stepped into his life. Only this time it would be worse, because earlier on he has not believed that there could ever be a friendship like this. This time, he knows what he might be losing.

No. Nikolai will not leave him. Never.

But then again, how can he be sure?

Yet whatever happens, Kirill will be glad that Nikolai has become a _vor_, glad for his friend. Even if his friend will choose to move on, Kirill will be proud.

And he _did_ help him to come this far. Without him, Nikolai would never have met his father. Whatever Nikolai says, he would not be here now without Kirill.

Still, it was a stupid lie last night in the cellar. Kirill should have known better.

He sighs and trots upstairs to pick up his _Middle-earth: The Lidless Eye Player's Guide_ from his desk. While he is waiting, he might as well rethink his current strategy.

Back on the stairs, he does his best to become absorbed, but he just is no real tactician, unlike Nikolai, who plays the Wizards series and always comes up with a certain strategy, while Kirill, who often plays the Lidless Eye series, which would actually allow for a lot of tactics, is a very straight-forward and offensive player. Moreover, he is restless. He is waiting for his friend to appear.

And he knows his friend is dressed in nothing but his underpants, which is a somewhat distracting thought. No matter how often he banishes the picture from his mind and scolds himself, it will always return.

After some time he gives up and places the book on the step he is sitting on, beside him. There is no point in reading when he cannot concentrate on the words.

But at least another twenty minutes are over.

How long will they take? Kirill has no idea how long the ceremony lasts usually. His own has seemed incredibly long to him, but according to his father it was over rather quickly. Kirill had expected it to be solemn, but all it really was to him was awkward, and he has felt incredibly sheepish, standing in front of the heads of the families stark naked and answering questions about his far from spectacular criminal record. Only when at last the stars were tattooed onto his chest and knees he has felt elevated, but still a stale taste has remained, the knowledge that what has made him a _vor_ was that he is his father's son, and that in the eyes of the heads of the families, those men who have all gone through the Zone like his father and like Nikolai, there is little honour in that. He has regarded it as his birthright, but at the same time it has angered him often enough that this does not earn him as much respect as gaining it through his deeds might give him. The respect he gets is respect for his father.

And this is also why they made him answer their questions naked. After all, he knows from his father that usually a candidate is allowed to keep at least his underpants on, but in his case, they were ready to accept him out of respect for his father, but let him feel that they had little respect for the son.

Well, at least he has borne it with calm and managed not to let them see how embarrassing he has really found it. Not that it bothers him to take his clothes off in front of other men, but being the only naked one in a round of well-dressed men is definitely awkward, especially when Valery Nabokov is scratching his chin with the top of his cane while mustering said naked one critically.

At least that creepy walrus-moustached one known as The Gypsy wasn't present at Kirill's ceremony. Poor Nikolai, having to endure that one.

But Nikolai will impress them all, every single one. Kirill is certain, and he is proud. Nikolai is the very best, the best there ever was. Compared to Nikolai, Kirill is but a little boy.

His father would agree with that.

But to be exact, there still are things Nikolai does not know, things Kirill has been filled in on.

And of course those things will get fewer and fewer as Nikolai will move up swiftly in the hierarchy, and eventually the time will come when it is Nikolai who is Kirill's captain, and not the other way around.

Yes, yes he will. Because you're lousy at anything you do.

Kirill wraps his arms around his knees and considers this. It is true, he thinks bitterly. He may be the son of a leading _vor_, but he is no good at all.

Is there anything you actually _can_ do, apart from video gaming?

Well, he has a pretty good memory, although this mainly manifests itself in knowing song lyrics by heart. He can be rather eloquent. He is strong, and he does not give up easily. He carries out orders with precision.

But apart from that…

Yet Nikolai likes him. And Nikolai must have a reason for liking him.

Because he is Nikolai's employer, obviously. He is only bothering with him so he can reach his own goals.

But then again, Nikolai has stepped in recently and kept his father from giving him a nasty thrashing when he was so fiendishly drunk he could hardly stay on his feet. The memory is hazy, but it is clear enough for him to tell. If at that point Nikolai really was thinking of getting to his father, this would have been a bad move.

Still, Nikolai does not need to put up with him any longer, now he is a _vor_ himself. Nikolai will take his orders directly from the father and forget all about the son.

Just then, the door opens, and Nikolai stands before him. The stars are still fresh and dark on his chest and knees, and he is smiling.

"Kolya!" At once Kirill is back on his feet, ignoring that one leg was just beginning to fall asleep from sitting in an uncomfortable position.

"Kiryusha," Nikolai answers fondly. "My little brother."

Kirill leaps down the steps and throws his arms around his friend's neck enthusiastically, all his worries and doubts forgotten. The bitterness is gone from his heart, washed away by a wave of joy, and by the warmth Nikolai exudes, the warmth that Kirill feels streaming into his fingers as they make contact with Nikolai's smooth skin.

"Calm down, little brother, calm down," Nikolai murmurs to him, patting his back. "Come on, let me get dressed, and then I'm expected with them again."

Grudgingly Kirill lets go of him and leads the way upstairs, taking two steps at once and only pausing very briefly to pick up his book again. "But we'll celebrate tonight," he insists, briefly turning on the landing, but not breaking his pace. And he will give Nikolai a proper hug later on, a brother's welcome into the family.

As they are inside Kirill's bedroom, where Nikolai has left his clothes, it is hard for Kirill to resist the temptation to embrace his friend once again. Instead he sits down on the bed while Nikolai gets dressed, admiring his swift, precise motions and his quiet grace. At the moment there is nothing about Nikolai he does not admire. And he is so happy he could bounce around like Maria does it when she is in a jolly mood.

"Are you coming down with me?" Nikolai asks casually as he pulls his shirt back on.

"Yes!" At once Kirill is back on his feet, practically without a transition. Nikolai wants him to accompany him!

"Then tuck your shirt in, silly."

Kirill laughs and does so. From his brother he'll readily take any reprimand. He also rolls down his sleeves and does up the pair of little buttons on each. "How do I look?"

With his tie hanging loosely around his shoulders and his belt still open, Nikolai comes over to him to straighten his collar and do up another button on his shirt, wearing a little smile as he does so. "_Now_ you look good, little one," he states, playfully patting his cheek. "Aren't you going to wear a jacket?"

Kirill wants to ruffle his hair, but decides against it since Nikolai is supposed to look impeccable now. Instead he brushes his own out of his face. "Nah. I don't like those silly uncomfortable suit jackets much. You can't lounge in them."

"I'm not even going to ask if you'll be wearing a tie." Nikolai is smiling warmly, and Kirill answers the smile. "But you get used to it, really."

"One can be a smart dresser without constantly wearing fucking Armani stuff like you," Kirill teases him. Still mirth is bubbling up inside him, and instead of going downstairs with Nikolai he wants to keep him here and spend the next five minutes play-wrestling and doing silly things altogether.

"Fine, have it your way." Nikolai finishes knotting his tie and puts his jacket on, then he sits down on the bed to tie his shoelaces.

Kirill throws himself down on the mattress very closely beside him, making him bounce slightly, and snickers as Nikolai tries to slap him around the head. "Man, this is the fucking best day of your life, eh? And we'll make it the best night, too. I'll get hold of some girls, shall I? Would you like to shag Sonya? I'll let you, for the special occasion, and have another one. Shame your Ukrainian bitch isn't around anymore, otherwise I'd have _her_. I haven't fucked most of them for ages, and you know what? That little thing you had on your lap last time, I haven't fucked her _at all _for at least three months, and she is willing enough, so it's high time I do her again. You can have a go, too, if you like, how's that?"

"Oh, Kiryusha." Nikolai chuckles. "Your balls are winning over your brains again."

Kirill grins. "C'mon, don't be like that. Regular sex is good for your health." He runs his hand over his groin, feeling his own hardness. "You seriously have to do it more often." And maybe they can take a girl together, the two of them, and have her in turns, or maybe even at the same time, one from the front and one from behind, or one from the front and one in her mouth.

Nikolai nudges him in the ribs and gets up. "Stop wanking, man, and come on."

"Call that wanking?" Kirill laughs and follows him. "Nah, Kolya, I'm dead serious, we ought to have a proper fucking orgy. In the literal sense."

"Later on, Kiryusha, later on." Nikolai straightens his jacket and tugs at his tie. "I'm not sure what they'll expect of me. You know your father, after all. Maybe he intends to send me somewhere first thing in the morning."

"Nasty as he is, that's possible," Kirill concedes. As he gets up from the bed, he feels his lust fade. Of course, his trousers rub less against his groin when he stands, which is of some help, but he doubts he is able to maintain an erection anyway when someone mentions his father. "Not that it's overly likely, but… right. Let's celebrate tomorrow, if you like. Tomorrow night, how's that?" The thought of the pleasures awaiting them still stimulates him, but he remains more or less limp this time, and he is glad for it. Not that it would be too obvious, considering the fit of his trousers, but still he would feel awkward, standing before the heads of the families in a state of strong sexual arousal.

"Tomorrow night. Agreed." Nikolai heads down the stairs, with Kirill trailing closely behind him. "Now show some dignity. You're presenting yourself as my captain, after all."

"I'm your brother now," Kirill reminds him. Strange, he thinks, why does he protest to being called Nikolai's captain? This is what he wanted, after all, Nikolai remaining his loyal follower, or isn't it?

No, he realises. He would accept Nikolai becoming his superior, as long as he remains his brother. He would readily be humbled this way, as long as Nikolai's brotherly affection for him does not cease.

"Hierarchy still is important to your father," Nikolai points out.

"But I'm your captain no more." It is so easy to say, a few simply words escaping his mouth, and yet those simple words throw him into turmoil. Joy is battling with wounded pride, deep affection with loss. This has become Nikolai's world now, and Kirill can see his friend's star of fortune glowing bright while his own is paling beside it.

And yet he would have it no other way, even if it hurts, because there are things more important than personal gain and pride.

He almost laughs at this thought in disbelief. Until now he has always considered such emotions unreal, elements in stories, but nothing that would happen in real life.

Yes, but he has not known until recently what it truly is like to have a friend, either.

It is crazy, absolutely crazy. This must be a bit like truly being in love must feel like.

And Nikolai's eyes are so gentle as he stops before the door and looks at him. Then he takes Kirill's face between his hands and places a tender kiss on his forehead. "I'll be there for you, my brother," he promises. "Always." And then he has already stepped over the threshold, back into the main room of the restaurant.

For a moment Kirill stands thunderstruck, filled with a kind of warmth that seems sentimental to him and still makes him want to hug Nikolai and hold onto him forever. Then he hastens after him, trying to banish the smile from his face, trying to shake off this silly daze. Who is he, a teenage boy who has just gotten his first kiss from the girl he fancies? This is ridiculous, but still he wants nothing more than be alone with Nikolai now and answer his pledge of friendship with one of his own, with strong, beautiful words, but there are none coming to his mind, and it is too late already, the moment is over and Nikolai is heading back to the heads of the _vory_. All Kirill can do is follow, and show them the dignity Nikolai has asked him to show.

But there is so much more he wants to be showing in this moment, so much more.


	6. Despair

_New blood joins this earth  
And quickly he's subdued  
Through constant pained disgrace  
The young boy learns the rules  
With time the child draws in  
This whipping boy done wrong  
Deprived of all his thoughts  
The young man struggles on and on  
He's known  
A vow unto his own  
That never from this day  
His will they'll take away_

-Metallica, The Unforgiven

They should be in cinema now, or strolling around together, or maybe at the brothel already. Wherever, but they should be together, a pair of brothers in all but blood, celebrating Nikolai's acceptance into the family. Instead, Nikolai is gone and Kirill is alone, and he cannot go to see him.

Misha has told him what has happened. He has blamed it on Azim and suggested Kirill propose to his father to have the treacherous Turk punished, but Kirill knows better. He understands what has really happened.

And this is why he is where he is now.

His father turns his head as he enters, his expression perfectly neutral, and Kirill wants to strangle him for wearing that look. But he restrains himself, his fists clenched so hard that it almost hurts. All he says is one simple word, but he shoots it at his father with all the seething fury and burning pain inside him: "Why?"

His father shakes his head slowly. "What are you talking about?"

"You know it exactly!" Kirill shouts, unable to keep his voice under control any longer. It is either rage at his father or break down and sob, he feels. "You betrayed him! Misha thinks it was Azim, but it was you! It all was a set-up, the whole fucking ceremony was a fake! It was _you_ who sold my brother to the fucking Chechens!"

"He's not your brother," his father says coldly. "He's just your driver. And he's still alive, so go to bed and leave me in peace with your fits of badly controlled temper."

"He could have died!" Kirill roars. "He almost did! And you can't send me away like a cur! Why did you do it, why?"

"Watch your tongue, boy!" his father thunders, but Kirill does not back away. "What gives you the right to question my choices?"

"What gives you the right to kill my friend?"

For a moment his father is thunderstruck, but he recovers very quickly. "So you would have preferred to die in his stead?" His voice is very soft now, soft and dangerous.

"Yes," Kirill says firmly, his fury carrying him on strong, swift wings. "If this is about me, set them on me. I'm not afraid to die." Yes, he would face death with his head held high, if he were saving Nikolai that way.

"You foolish boy!" his father bellows. "You have no idea what you are talking about, pampered little prince that you are!"

"Yes I do! I fucking do!"

"Now get out, and don't you ever dare to question my judgement again!"

"Try and make me!"

His father aims a blow at his face, but he dodges it just in time. "A couple of months ago in Hyde Park, when striking a bargain with Chernov's lot, do you know who saved my life when old Atanassov pulled a gun on me? He could have died, but he took them out, both of them! Without him, I'd be fucking dead now, and this is how you thank him for it?"

"Don't get sentimental," his father snarls, wearing a grimace of contempt. "And I hate to repeat myself. Stop questioning my choices. Now. Who the fuck do you think you are?"

What a strange contrast, it briefly occurs to Kirill, all the bookshelves in his father's room, and the antique desk that must have cost a fortune, the room of a cultivated gentleman. Nobody would expect a scene like this to take place here. "I'm your son."

"That is of no consequence," his father bellows. "I decide what I do with my men, not you!"

_My men. My men!_ "Nikolai is my partner!" Kirill roars, wild rage clouding his mind with a red haze. "When you betray him, you betray me!"

"Oh yes?" His father's hand shoots out very suddenly and grips him by the front of his T-shirt. "Betray you? You're pathetic!" Before Kirill can tear himself loose, he already has violently pushed him against the front of a cupboard, and Kirill feels one doorknob digging painfully into his lower back. For his age, his father is surprisingly strong. "All you ever do is cause trouble! And then you come and complain, a complete failure like you whining about betrayal!"

"I do my job!" Kirill protests furiously, his father's insults feeling like a physical blow. "I'm out there handling it all while you sit in here playing the fucking mastermind, never endangering your arse one single fucking time!"

"I will not be spoken to like that!" Kirill should have expected it, but still his father's fist coming out of nowhere and forcefully connecting with the side of his jaw, knocking his head against the cupboard, catches him by surprise, but at least he manages not to cry out. "You do as you're told, keep that in mind! Or are you too stupid to even understand this simple order? Now I will hear no more of it!"

But Kirill will not back down. Not this time. His life does not belong to this old tyrant. Instead, he looks his father straight in the eyes. "You couldn't bear to have Nikolai around you because he is a better man than you, in everything he does!" he flings at him. The next moment, terror seizes him for saying something like this to his father, but he steels himself for the onslaught of wrath that is to come now. He is sick of cowering, and that time is over now; he swears to himself that he will cringe and duck no more.

"A better man than me?" One corner of his father's mouth twitches. "Luckily your judgement is worth nothing at all, you fucking queer."

He has expected everything, but not this. The shock at such an insult from his own father leaves him thunderstruck, unable to form a word, let alone a coherent sentence. He just shakes his head numbly, unbelieving, too shocked and hurt to protest.

"See?" his father states coldly. "You don't even deny it. You're a disgrace to the family."

"It's a lie," Kirill murmurs tonelessly. "It's just a filthy lie."

When his father punches him in the stomach hard, he makes no move to defend himself. Blow after blow is raining down on him, making him cringe and throwing him against the hard wooden door in turn, but he hardly feels the pain. The fury is gone, seeped out of him like air escaping from a stabbed balloon, and all that is left is darkness and despair. Nikolai is gone, and his father does not love him and never will. Somehow he deserves the beating, he thinks, because he has truly failed at everything. He should be dead, dead and buried deep where nobody will ever find him, with nothing to remind the world that he ever existed. There is a grief so deep it cannot be put into words, a never-ending pain, a loneliness from which there is no rescue. He finds himself crouching on the ground while his father kicks him again and again, with tears streaming down his cheeks, tears he cannot stop, and all he can think of is that tomorrow the sun will still rise no matter if he is dead or alive. He is of no importance, and nobody will ever miss him, sacrificial lamb without a cause, waiting to die for nothing.

How can he fight when he is already broken inside?

"Now get out," his father says at last, and he sees the contempt written on his father's features, grotesquely blurred through the tears.

He manages to get to his feet, his limbs shaking, and stumbles out, bereft of even his pride. All he wants is to get away, to be alone, to bleed to death in peace and drown in his own blood. In his bedroom, he pulls the door shut behind him, his fingers almost too feeble to turn the key. He collapses on the bed, shaking with sobs that break out of him, tearing his chest apart.

Oh Nikolai, Kolya, my only friend, where are you now when I need you most?

But he is alone, alone in a dark crater with walls too steep to climb, strapped unto an altar under a starless sky.

There is a large plush lion on the bed, sitting beside his pillow, a gift from his father, a reward for bringing home top marks when he was a little schoolboy. The perfect gleam of the fur has faded, and the mane does not feel silky anymore, but Kirill will not give the lion away, he means too much to him. Now he pulls him close and nuzzles his face into the soft fur, caressing the mane. It is all the comfort he can get, a memory from days long gone.

If only Nikolai were here…

This is what his father wanted: punish the son for all his failures by killing his best friend. Kirill can see the cruelty of it clearly. And there is no way he can take revenge. He fails even at that.

But Nikolai is still alive, he reminds himself, hugging the lion to him tightly. Nikolai will come back to him.

And yet, to wait for him is unbearable. He wants him back _now_, and he wants him to hold him and comfort him, and to promise once more that he will never, never leave him.

The humiliation at his father's brutal words mingles with shame at this thought, shame at his own helplessness, and at his dependence on Nikolai.

If he could only go to see him at the hospital… But he has to be cautious, even if it drives him mad. A _vor_ cannot visit a fellow _vor_ in hospital; it is a rule, and he will not break those rules. It would endanger both Nikolai and himself, along with all the others.

But what does he care about the others? What do they matter to him? He hates them, and his father most of all.

And still he is a _vor_, and will remain one.

And still his father is his father, and there is no way to fight him.

Only when Nikolai is there to help him and give him the strength he needs.

No, he is no queer, whatever Soyka claimed, whatever his father says. He is no queer. And still Nikolai means more to him than anyone else, still he loves him more than anything else in the world. Yes, he loves him, he loves him so much that he can hardly bear to be separated from him, that it torments him to know Nikolai is wounded and alone and he cannot be with him.

It torments him that Azim is still out there somewhere, alive and well. That swine should be dead, dead and torn to pieces and scattered in the wilderness for all kinds of wild animals to devour.

As his father should be.

No. No, never. Not his father.

Yes. Both Azim and his father. Both.

But his father is his father!

Is this the way a father acts? Is this the way a father should treat his son?

And still a tiny spark of hope remains, the desperate hope that one day his father will love him again. He cannot extinguish it and turn away. It binds him, and it always will.

He will fight from now on, he swears, he will not let himself be humiliated again. But he knows that every time he tries his father will break him, again and again.

I need you, Kolya. I need you with me. I can't do this alone.

And then he whispers the fateful words, whispers them into the lion's soft ear: "I love you Kolya. I'm no fucking queer, but damn it, I love you."


	7. Small Changes

_Lay beside me  
This won't hurt, I swear  
She loves me not, she loves me still  
But she'll never love again  
She lay beside me  
But she'll be there when I'm gone  
Black heart scarring darker still  
Yes, she'll be there when I'm gone_

-Metallica, The Unforgiven II

Sergei does not ask any specific questions when Kirill arrives at the brothel. He rarely ever does. Only his usual one, "What's it gonna be this time?"

"Some time with Sonya," Kirill informs him. "I'm in the mood for something a bit more extensive."

"Just Sonya, then? Or one or two others?" Sergei suggests. "It's only just early afternoon. They're all free at the moment."

"Just Sonya will do," Kirill confirms. "I just want a plain fuck, not a whole orgy."

"Maybe next time, eh?" Sergei grins, and Kirill grins back and saunters into one of the bedrooms. "And tell her there's no need for make-up," he calls, but he is not sure if Sergei has heard it.

His lust should be growing now, as he sits on the edge of the bed and waits for her, taking off his shoes in the meantime, but there is nothing going on between his legs. No surprise, really, with all the tension and worry, and with his father making it all even worse.

His father, who is the cause of it all. His father, who has betrayed him.

All he feels is fury, wild fury that sears his insides. Damn you, what kind of father do you think you are, trying to kill the only one I truly love?

Well, Nikolai is not the only one he loves, actually. He loves Maria, and he loves his sisters. He loves the memory of his mother. And he probably loves Vulturus the dog, he thinks, because the dog seems to love him in turn.

But he loves Nikolai, his protector, his friend, his brother, more than anything else in the world.

If he could only go to see him! But there is no way he can. He has to be patient, he has to wait. And yet, how can he bear to wait for so long?

The door opens quietly, and Sonya slips in, in a thin, short dress that shows off her nicely formed legs. Her dark hair is in disarray, hanging over her face, and she holds her head lowered. "Hello," she murmurs, barely more than a whisper.

"Hello, little one. Anything the matter?"

She approaches slowly, very reluctantly. "I… I…" And then it all breaks out of her with a sob. "I'm so sorry, please don't be angry with me, please…"

What the hell is the matter with the girl? "Come here," Kirill says curtly, but when she sits down beside him, looking at the floor, he places an arm around her shoulders, like Nikolai does it with him when there is something wrong. "And now let's hear what happened, okay?"

Sonya sniffles and moves closer to him. "I'm really sorry. I talked back to Sergei. I won't do it again, I promise."

Kirill waves it away. "Sergei can go fuck himself. I don't care what you say to him. What was it about, anyway?" Not that it interests him much, but all the same, maybe it turns out to be a useful piece of information, who knows?

"Well… he wanted me to tell the others what a talented lover he is. With enthusiasm."

Kirill cannot help but laugh at this. "With enthusiasm? The mere thought makes you keel over and snore, I bet."

"Absolutely." Sonya cuddles against him. "I wasn't enthusiastic enough, so he made me repeat it over and over again until I said I was fed up."

"What a moron." Kirill truly means it. The only thing Sergei has achieved with this is making himself look ridiculous. But what does he care? He pats Sonya's thigh. "Stop crying, will you? It's over now."

"Sorry," she murmurs into his shoulder. "I'll try and be entertaining."

He sighs, his thoughts with Nikolai once again, all the things he has never told him and now feels he should have. "I might be a bit hard to entertain today." And I act as if he were dead, he thinks. I'm such a sentimental fool.

Almost dead. Almost. He could have died there, all on his own and defenceless. It was a very narrow escape.

And once again Kirill blames himself. Of course, it was his father who planned it all, his father and Azim, that filthy swine, but all the same, part of the blame is his to take, for his blind folly.

Just then, Sonya asks, "Where is Nikolai?"

"Do you think I can't go anywhere without Nikolai?" Kirill grumbles, and she recoils, but he quickly places a hand on her thigh soothingly. He does not want to scare her off. "He's not well, but he'll be fine."

Sonya nods and starts stroking his chest and stomach, and he tries to relax and banish all conscious thoughts from his mind, but it is very hard to do. As she starts unbuttoning his shirt, he is reluctant to allow her to for a moment, but it would be silly to back out now like a coy little girl.

Of course she sees the fresh bruises he was meaning to hide from her when she pushes his shirt off his shoulders, and she hesitates, then gingerly runs the tip of her forefinger over the prominent one on the side of his upper stomach. "Does it hurt?"

"No." Not physically, anyway, as long as nobody pokes him.

She inspects the ones on his upper arm and shoulder, then moves on to critically eye those on his ribcage. "Have you been in a fight?"

"No," he says flatly. "Not really."

"When did it happen?"

"Yesterday." He suppresses a sigh. "Stop asking questions, will you?"

"Sorry."

"And stop apologising," he grumbles.

"I will."

"Get some backbone," he growls, angry for no reason, and angry at himself as he feels that he might as well tell himself the same.

Sonya crawls onto the bed behind him and starts kissing the back of his neck, but he can feel her nervousness, her tension. Despite not meaning to, he is scaring her once again. Bad move, he tells himself. Now she won't please you properly.

She will. I'll make her.

You're no better than your father. She is older than that Tatiana, yes, and she is willing, but this is not what she would choose if she could. Only because Sonya obeys it will not cease to be rape.

No. It's not.

Yes it is.

She's sixteen, and she likes me, damn it!

Does she really?

He sighs. The bleak feeling is there again, the feeling he has experienced so often recently, the feeling that shows him that something is seriously wrong with his life.

Something? Everything.

Sonya massages his shoulders, then she moves further down his back, and he tries to relax, but he is unable to concentrate on anything. It all drifts out of his mind again, leaving nothing but a grey haze, empty and meaningless.

Why? Damn it, why? I'm sober!

"Do you ever get this feeling," he finally says, "that someone's been screwing with your brains, only you have no idea who and how?"

She hesitates. "I'm not sure."

"Right, forget about it, then." He probably just sounded like an idiot, but he does not care. "Say, where do you come from?"

"Somewhere not so far from Irkutsk, by the Angara river." She does not stop stroking him.

"That's a very long way from here."

"Yes," she says, but he fails to detect the expected melancholy in her voice. "The other side of the world."

The very other end of Siberia. He has never been there, let alone anywhere near. The farthest he has ever been is Novosibirsk, and that is about in the middle of Siberia, where the plain in the west meets the mountains in the east. "What's it like?"

"Hot in summer, cold in winter. But not as cold as in other places, it's pretty far south. Amid hills and forests. Apart from that… I don't know, I've rarely ever seen the city itself, but it seemed huge to me, and… magnificent, in a way."

Just what he has expected. Another poor little village girl who has hardly ever seen a real city. "Funny. We were born more than three thousand miles apart."

"Where were you born, then?" Her tone is very tentative.

"Moscow." This is the first time she has ever asked him a personal question, he realises.

"I've never been to Moscow." Now there is longing in her voice. Of course, to someone born at a small village at the far end of Siberia, Moscow must be like a place from a fairytale.

"I haven't been there for a long time."

She kisses the back of his neck. "Do you miss it?"

"Sometimes." He gently nudges her away, but only to stretch out on the bed on his side and pull her to him once again, and she readily cuddles against him. By now she has stopped crying. "If I said I'd bring you home, all the way to Irkutsk, would you go?"

"I don't know," she says after a moment's silence. "I have nowhere to go, really. I'm here because my family sent me away, I was too expensive to feed and didn't earn enough money." She says it very matter-of-factly. "They said I'd be better off in London, and good luck, and that was about it. I don't even know which one of those three was my real father, if any at all." She slowly strokes his side. "Why do you ask?" And suddenly he believes to hear hope in her voice.

"Just out of curiosity." Her face is nuzzled under his chin, so there is no way he could possibly see it, but still he can imagine the look of disappointment on her features. "All the same," he adds, "I think you're in for a favour, since you've been very pleasant company quite often."

"A favour? Really?" At once she props herself up on one elbow and stares at him in disbelief. "Thank you, that's really, really nice of you!"

He smiles and rolls over onto his back. "Why don't you make a suggestion?"

Again she moves closer to him and starts caressing his upper chest with the tips of her fingers, very light, feathery touches that slowly, ever so slowly travel downwards. "If I could ask for something… I'd like to work somewhere else, please. Somewhere where I don't have to please disgusting fat old men that grope at me with sticky fingers and grunt and fart and stink. I'll still be at your service any time you want me, but… just not here. Isn't there anything else I could do for you?"

He gazes up at the ceiling, considering her request. "Hm." Her fingers have wandered on to his upper stomach by now, but one hand briefly returns to tease a nipple, and he gives a little sigh of pleasure. Sometimes he tends to suspect that Sonya knows his erogenous zones better even than he does himself. Before he has met her, he has not even been aware of how much he likes having a finger lightly trace his lower ribs, for example, but when he touches himself it works just as well. Sonya really is a skilled little thing. "I'll have to ask my father's permission to make you my private mistress, and I have no idea how he'll react, but I think I can get him to agree." Yes, because if he asks for a girl of his own, it proves that Soyka is mistaken with his vile claims about his sexual orientation. "Still," he thinks aloud, "remains the question where I'll keep you, and that's a tough one. Because I can't just lock you into my bedroom, and I don't want to keep you in the cellar either."

"I wouldn't run," Sonya reminds him before she leans over him to kiss his chest. Looking up, she adds, "I have nowhere to go, remember?" Her long dark hair pleasantly tickles his skin.

"I know, but try and explain that to my father." Kirill sighs, half with exasperation and half with pleasure at having her kiss a trail down to his navel. "But I'll figure out how to do it, I can promise you that."

"Thank you," she breathes, unbuckling his belt. "I'll do anything you ask of me. Anything."

He readily believes her. "As a matter of fact, there _is_ something you could do until then." And no doubt she will, grateful as she is now. In this moment, she probably will do anything indeed. "There have been… intrigues lately. I need to know what people have been saying about me, or if they have been asking about me, perhaps. After all, it's easy enough to find out you're my favourite, I guess."

She pauses in unbuttoning the fly of his black jeans. "Everyone, or just customers with connections to the _vory_?"

"Everyone."

"Alright. Now, or would you like to do it with me first?"

"Now," Kirill says. "We're not in a hurry."

"Is it not urgent yet, then?" Sonya runs a hand over his groin, succeeding in sending a prickly feeling through his body. "True, that's just the normal degree of bulging, not the treacherous one."

Teasing me, are you? Kirill grins. "If you keep touching me there, it might get pretty, well, _treacherous _soon." Yes, despite his constant worries, despite Nikolai – Sonya might be able to achieve the little miracle even his own hand could not achieve last night.

"In this case, would you like me to give you a blowjob?" she asks slyly, on her hands and knees over him and actually wearing a mischievous expression.

"You little temptress." He takes her arm and pulls her towards him, and she lies down beside him once more, with an arm around his middle. "Let's talk business first." Moreover, he fears that she might give him some pleasure, but that he will be unable to find release. Was it a good idea at all, coming here in this state of mind?

"First," she says, "there's your father. He's asked about you recently."

This does not come as a surprise at all. "Anyone specific?"

"They sent him straight to me, told him you were with me most often. It's true, yes, but part of the reason they so readily told him is that… well, he's feared. It's not that he's overly disgusting or perverse, but –"

"Spare me the explicit detail, okay?" Kirill interrupts. "He's my father."

"Oh, sorry." Sonya giggles softly and kisses his cheek. "Well, he just asked about your habits. What you're like."

Kirill groans. It is all Soyka's fault. Having the man killed was not enough; now he is taking revenge from the grave by means of the poisonous seed he has sown. "What did you say?"

"I wasn't sure what to answer, because I had no idea what he wanted to hear, so I just said you're a wild one with the stamina of a bull, rather vigorous and very dominant."

Kirill smiles up at the ceiling. This probably is a compliment. And it also sounds like what his father would want to hear.

"I hope that was alright," she murmurs when he does not say anything. "If not, then I'm really sorry."

"No, it's fine." He runs a hand through her hair. "It's quite perfect. How about others?"

"Well, the girls all think you're more pleasant than your father, and those you've been with say you're not brutal normally, just when you're drunk, then you tend to be a bit moody." She caresses his side, as if to soothe him in case this angers him. "And others… Well, I hear them mention you from time to time, but they never say anything specific. Except Soyka."

"Soyka?"

She keeps stroking him, and he can feel how she tenses at the growl in his tone. "Yes, Soyka. I thought he was a friend of yours, because I saw you together here twice, but he doesn't sound like one. Don't be angry," she adds hastily, "I don't want to insult him or anything."

"Insult him as much as you like," Kirill says grimly. "He's not my friend, and he never was." Well, once he used to think he was, but no more. "What did he say?"

"It was something like two or three weeks ago when he came here, extremely drunk and with a slightly bloody nose, like someone punched him or something. Sergei sort of avoided him, I don't know why, but he was pretty aggressive towards him. And he wanted to know which girls you take – if any at all, he said, and he was wearing that ugly sneer. Then he came for me, and was very rough and unpleasant." Sonya cuddles more closely against him. "He took me from behind. Luckily it was over very quickly, and then he sneered and said this probably was how you have me, and I told him it wasn't, that you always take me from the front, so he would shut up and go… but he didn't, not immediately. Instead he hit me and said I was a liar, because you… because…" Here she falters.

"Because I'm a queer," he finishes flatly. "That's what he said, isn't it?"

"Yes. That's what he said."

Inside him, a wild beast roars and rages. Kirill wants to retrieve Soyka's corpse from its wet grave and maim it, cut it to small bits and feed it to Vulturus. No, not to Vulturus, the dog should not have to live on something as vile as Soyka. He wants Soyka to come alive again so he can kill him anew, a hundred, a thousand times.

"I told him it wasn't true, but he just hit me again. Then he left. I don't know if he went to anyone else."

Death was too good for Soyka. Definitely too good.

"I thought perhaps you two had been in a fight," Sonya continues, "and this is why he was angry, and got even angrier when I wouldn't believe him."

"Yes," Kirill says numbly, as if the wild creature he has pictured in his mind has just stomped over him and knocked his breath out of his lungs. "Yes indeed."

_"Why don't you fuck off and see to your work?" Kirill snarls. What is the matter with Soyka, why is he acting like that, being so provokingly slow after his father has made it clear that they are in a hurry?_

_"Oh, you're the one to talk," Soyka sneers. "Efficient through and through."_

_"You heard my father, right?" Kirill snaps. "Or are you deaf? Do you want me to call him back here so he can repeat his instructions for you?" By now, everybody in the yard has fallen silent. Misha is leaning against the wall by the van, lazily flicking a cigarette, not reprimanding Boris, who has dropped the crate he was about to pick up and is now watching the exchange in the middle of the yard openly._

_"Always whining for your father, are you?" Soyka stands there with his fists on his hips, and the wind is pulling at his dark hair. "Can't you even handle a trifle alone? You're a boy, Kiryusha, a pampered brat who has never seen prison from inside and still thinks he can play with the _vory_."_

_"Shut your fucking mouth and get back to work!" Kirill bellows, his fingers clenching into fists. How dare he insult him in front of everyone? Soyka may be a leading _vor_, but that gives him no right to talk like that!_

_"Now, now, Kiryusha, don't you get agitated." Soyka turns lazily and gestures to Leonid, taking on his usual pompous, jovial tone and demeanour that Kirill normally finds just silly, but that now gets on his nerves extremely. "Here we go. Get me a good map of Southwark, and for God's sake get me a strong coffee. That kid is giving me a headache."_

_Kirill wants to throw himself at him, grip him by the throat and knock his head against the wall to bring him back to his senses, but Nikolai gently touches his shoulder, and he draws a deep breath and tries to remain calm, as dignified as the son of a boss should be. "Man, what the fuck's up with you? If you want to get in a fight so desperately, go to someone else. I'm not fighting a fellow _vor_ for no reason."_

_Misha nods appreciatively, and Kirill is content. This was a good reaction, for once. It makes him look good, and Soyka look bad. Even his father could say nothing against it._

_Soyka turns to face him again slowly. "Want me to give you one?"_

_"No, thank you," Kirill says coldly. He has always considered Soyka a bit of an idiot, but until now he has assumed that they are friends. How could he have missed what a complete arsehole the man is? "I'm not interested. Why don't you go and fight one of your Chechen gang?" And stay with them. You're definitely not welcome to hang out with me any longer, he mentally adds._

_"Easy, Soyka," Misha puts in, blowing out a stream of smoke and thereby blowing a long blond strand of hair out of his face. "What's the deal?"_

_Ivan and Sergei enter the yard from the passage to the road, discussing something, but stop in their tracks and fall silent when they see how Soyka is standing in the middle of the yard, some fifteen feet apart from Kirill, and how they are glaring at each other. Leonid is watching Soyka uncertainly, his narrow shoulders hunched as if expecting a blow, his stance the one of a man poised to run, and yet he still reaches out to tug at his sleeve, but Soyka shakes him off impatiently._

_"Easy, boys," Misha repeats. Judging from his youthful face and long whitish-blond mane, nobody would expect him to be a man convicted twice for murder. He has spent more than half of his life behind bars already, and this gives him a certain authority, even among the _vory_, where he is an old member. His shirt, despite the chill half unbuttoned, exposes a pair of bells tattooed onto the middle of his chest, the sign of a man who will never be let out on parole._

_It seems that Soyka is about to back away at last, and Kirill already feels the tension leaving his limbs, but then Soyka says, loudly and clearly, "How did you earn the stars, Kirill? Not by licking the dust off your father's boots?"_

_There comes an audible intake of breath from Ivan, but nobody pays attention to the little curly-haired Georgian._

_"How did _you_ earn the stars, Soyka?" Kirill snarls, restrained only by the grip Nikolai immediately has on his upper arm. "Not by raping another seven-year-old, you fucking pederast?"_

_Boris grins stupidly, while Ivan prefers to back away towards whence he has come._

_Soyka comes towards him, employing that lazy swaggering saunter that means no good, but Kirill stands his ground. "Oh yes, I'm a pederast? Care to know what _you_ are?"_

_"What am I, then?" Dare to insult me. Come on, dare to do it. Kirill is tense as a serpent about to strike._

_Soyka is very close now and speaks in the laziest drawl he is capable of. "You're a fucking drunk, man. And a fucking queer."_

_This time Nikolai is too slow. Kirill lunges at Soyka, his fist connecting with the side of his jaw, and at the same time he feels Soyka's fist brutally digging into his upper stomach, but he hardly notices the pain. He just wants to hurt the man he once considered his companion, his friend, as much as he can, not caring where he hits him, and if Soyka hits him back. As he is gripped firmly from behind, he struggles, and so does Soyka as Sergei and Boris turn up from behind to pull him away, but Sergei is rather strong for a man of his size, and Boris is even stronger. He hears Nikolai's voice close to his ear but does not take in the words, sees Misha's pale blond hair at the edge of his vision and smells the scent of cigarette smoke that clings to him, but all he truly concentrates on is Soyka, Soyka straining against the others' grip, a trickle of blood dripping from one nostril. He wants to attack him again and hit him in the face until those features so well known to him become an unrecognisable bloody mass._

_"Easy, boys," Misha says once again. "Here, Kirill, calm down." He has an arm around his chest, Kirill realises, a grip as strong as a steel band, and that must be Nikolai's grasp on his left upper arm._

_"Take your fucking filthy hands off me!" Soyka snarls at Sergei and Boris, and Sergei winces, but does not move away, not even as Leonid approaches with a hand suspiciously under his jacket. "How dare you touch a _vor_?"_

_"Cut it, Soyka!" Misha bellows, and it takes a lot to make him assume such a tone. "That's enough, both of you!"_

_Kirill is breathing heavily, and only now he begins to feel that his lower lip is probably bleeding; he can feel a warm drop of moisture running down his chin. His stomach hurts, and so does his left knee, for some reason. But at least he has succeeded in giving Soyka a nosebleed. That serves the swine right._

_And it is not enough yet!_

_"Calm down," Nikolai mutters to him. "He's not worth it."_

_Still Kirill is burning with fury, but he knows that it is not wise to fight in the yard, in front of everybody. And should his father somehow hear of this, it is bad enough already, without him making it even worse now. So he forces his muscles to relax, forces himself to breathe evenly._

_Misha lets go of him, and Nikolai immediately does the same, but not without giving Kirill's arm a gentle squeeze, and suddenly Kirill wants him to leave his hand where it was, to give him reassurance and strength through his touch. But all the same, Nikolai's presence is enough in itself. "Piss off, Soyka," he says evenly, wiping his chin with the back of his hand and ignoring the red smear it leaves on his skin, and with Misha beside him he feels he has a certain authority, while Nikolai gives him some inner security. "Get your work done."_

_Sergei and Boris have let go of Soyka as well, and the Chechen glares at Kirill, but does not say anything. Then he turns abruptly, brushing past Sergei roughly, and gestures for Leonid to follow him as he marches out of the yard._

_"What the fuck has gotten into him?" Misha asks, shaking his head in disbelief, but Kirill suspects that he is not entirely on his side. There is an uneasy feeling building up at the pit of his stomach. This all should not have happened, and it might well happen again if he does not manage to establish his authority very firmly indeed._

_"No idea." He tries to shrug it off, but it will not go away that easily. "I've never seen him like that."_

_"I thought you two were friends," Misha says._

_"I thought so too." But now Soyka is his friend no more, not after this. "Apparently he's a treacherous bastard." He tries to appear unaffected, but is not sure if it works out the way he wants it._

_Misha shrugs, mutters something and heads over to Boris, and Kirill nods at him and returns to the house through the kitchen entrance, Nikolai closely at his heels. When Nikolai pulls the door shut behind them, he heaves a sigh of relief._

_"Are you alright?" It is astonishing how much Nikolai's demeanour can change when they are alone together. Already he has taken out a handkerchief and is dabbing at Kirill's lower lip._

_"C'mon, don't fuss," Kirill protests, although he likes the attention. Nikolai probably is the only person in the world who would nurse him like that. "It's nothing."_

_"Keep still," Nikolai simply says. He firmly places an arm around his shoulders and steers him towards the deserted sink, where he moistens the handkerchief and cleans the cut. The cool water feels good on Kirill's hot, throbbing lip, and he is glad to have Nikolai with him. Still he is furious, so furious he wants to hurl things through the kitchen until they break, but his friend's presence soothes him. Instead, he feels inclined to rest his head on Nikolai's shoulder and wait quietly until he has calmed down again._

_Maybe this is why Soyka has just called him a queer._

_Then Soyka has never had a real friend, he thinks angrily, and while he may have brothers back where he comes from, they probably don't like him. Otherwise he would know that it is only natural to place an arm around another's shoulder. Kirill has also done it with Soyka a couple of times, and Soyka must know that he does not harbour even the slightest sexual interest in him. No, indeed not! Or has he perhaps seen how Kirill has recently dozed with his head on Nikolai's shoulder at the table in the corner while waiting for Misha and Dimitri to arrive? Well, there was nothing wrong with it as well; it was late at night and he was tired. And Soyka cannot possibly have witnessed his thank-you to Nikolai for saving his life two months ago, the first time after many long years he has felt safe in anyone's embrace. And when have they ever been play-wrestling in front of Soyka?_

_No, he tries to calm himself, Soyka has just called him a queer because he has called him a pederast._

_But Soyka _is_ a pederast, curse him. He has been in prison for raping a twelve-year-old girl! That makes him a pederast alright, in Kirill's opinion, no matter how old the girl might have looked. The dagger tattooed onto his chest tells of his deed, everybody knows it._

_What if, in Soyka's opinion, Kirill really is a queer?_

_"There is something you ought to know," Nikolai says softly, mustering Kirill's wound critically once again and then shrugging and leaving it as it now is. "About Soyka. You know I used to be in the export business."_

_"Cars and stuff, yes." Kirill nods. There are many things he does not know about Nikolai, he suspects, but he certainly knows a lot about his field of expertise._

_"And you know I have contacts with the Chechen clan."_

_Kirill nods. So this is some background information about Soyka._

_Nikolai lowers his voice even further. "They told me what I'm sure your father knows already. Could you possibly fit a little excursion into your schedule? To somewhere where we can be certain we will not be disturbed?"_

_Kirill does not question this request; he trusts Nikolai enough. "If this is important, then we'll fit it in right now."_

Sonya's lips tenderly meet his, and Kirill does his best to banish the memory of Soyka's twofold betrayal from his thoughts, but it will not go away so easily. In a way, Soyka is not dead yet, and he will never die.

"I don't think he was with anyone else," she says. "But if you want me to, I'll ask all the girls about him."

"There's no need to," Kirill declines. "Don't worry about it." Because it is too late anyway, he thinks.

"If he comes again," Sonya promises, "I will let you know immediately if there is any way I can."

"He's not coming back. He's dead." There is no satisfaction in this, however. It does not make his deeds become unreal. It does not eradicate his poisonous words from existence.

If he kills Azim, Kirill wonders, will there be no satisfaction afterwards just as well, nothing but the feeling of dirty, bloodstained hands that fills his dreams?

What is the point of revenge? It only triggers more revenge, and at the end of the day it changes nothing at all.

Soyka for his treason and lies. Azim's retarded nephew for Soyka. Nikolai for Soyka, in Kirill's place. And now Soyka's brothers are dead already, but there still remains Azim. Azim for Nikolai.

What is the brief moment of grim satisfaction against the lasting sense of loss?

And yet, how can he suffer Azim to live when Azim has meant Nikolai to die?

How can he suffer his father to live?

The thought is terrible, but it is logical.

And after he has wallowed in blood to take revenge for Nikolai, who will come to spill his own blood in the name of revenge, and who will be there to take revenge in turn?

Nikolai. Nikolai, who has guarded him with his life, and given his blood for his friend's.

And once again Kirill senses how what he feels for his father pales and fades away in comparison to what Nikolai means to him, and once again he swears to himself that from now on his life will change, that he will cease to be a mere boy who cowers at his father's every order and become a man. But at the same time, he knows that he cannot do this alone. He needs Nikolai, more than ever.

Sonya reaches for his fly once more, but he takes her hand in his instead. "They break you, don't they? They break you time and time again."

"Yes," she whispers, her fingers tightly clutching his. "Day after day, night after night."

"There comes a point when you are so broken inside that you can fight no more. They will try to get you there, but you mustn't let them, do you hear? You must keep fighting. Or else you lose your soul before you realise it and become a lifeless puppet."

Why is he telling her this? He has no idea.

"How do I fight them?" Her arms are around him, just like his are around her now.

"Is there something worth staying alive for? Someone, perhaps?"

"I don't know," she murmurs against his cheek. "Hope, maybe. But I have no idea what it is I'm hoping for. For you to come again, perhaps, because you are kind, usually, but… There's nobody else who would come for me."

It is a call for help, he knows it. She wishes for him to take her away from this dark life, just like he wishes for Nikolai to do the same for him. And he pities her, because pity for others, while not suitable for a _vor_, is still better than just pitying himself, which is repulsive and pathetic. "We will both be free," he whispers to her, despising himself for his sentimentality, but better be sentimental than be like his father.

What does she mean to you, he asks himself, why do you make such a fuss over her? She's just one of the little bitches you earn your money with.

And still he props himself up on one elbow and leans down to her to kiss her. While his tongue plays with hers, and while her fingers thread themselves into his hair, he thinks of Nikolai, of what he would say to this. Would he approve?

Why is it that he knows so little about the one man closest to him?

Yes, he decides, Nikolai would approve. Definitely.

Sonya is crying again, he realises as he breaks the contact, and he cradles her in his arms and strokes her hair. It feels good, being the strong one who comforts others, it makes him forget about at least a little of his own grief. It is just like when he was a small boy back in Moscow and comforted his younger sister when there was a thunderstorm outside: He was scared himself, but she was scared more than he was, and it made him forget some of his own fear. He feels the moisture rising in his eyes, but he fights back the tears and concentrates on the girl in his arms instead.

He has not even had her remove her clothes yet. This is peculiar.

But he still is not really in the mood. Is he going to sleep with her at all? Maybe another time.

But what has he come for, then?

And what will she think of him? That he is going soft?

"I'm afraid there is only one way I can thank you," she mutters against his chest.

"I don't know if I'll be able to at all," he confesses – what choice does he have? "I've been having a bit of a rough time." And after all, he is entitled to be tired as well at times, is he not? All the same, he should have kept his mouth shut, he thinks just a heartbeat later. "I feel like I've been run over by a fucking truck," he hastily adds to justify what might be failure in her eyes.

She strokes his cheek. "Yes, those bruises look really nasty." Is that genuine worry in her voice, worry for him? Can this be? "You need rest, then you'll feel better."

She seems insecure, but then again, this should not surprise him. Doubtlessly she never has been in the position to fuss over a _vor_ yet.

And she blames it on his physical condition. It comes as a relief to him. "I'll be fine," he assures her.

"Lie back and relax," she tells him, her face still teary, her voice still a little shaky. At first he expects her to massage him, but instead she starts caressing him with her fingertips once again, and he does his best to enjoy it without a second thought, but how can he forget all the bleakness and bitterness inside him? He wants to be with Nikolai, safe in his arms, where there is no need to be scared, not even of his father. He wants to forget everything in Nikolai's embrace.

See? Your father was right when he called you a queer.

No, he was not. He was not!

"You're so tense," Sonya says, stroking him under the chin, then leaning down to briefly kiss him, and he licks a small teardrop off her cheek before she sits up again. It feels good to see a small smile appear on her lips for a moment. Once again she reaches for his fly, and he lets her unbutton it. At least this produces a pleasantly tickling sensation between his legs, a sensation that is increased as Sonya caresses him through his boxers. Her skilled little fingers can truly achieve miracles. "See? Of course you're able to. You're getting hard already."

"You don't have to do this," Kirill says, and is astonished at himself. What in the name of hell is the matter with him?

"I choose to do it," Sonya says simply before she pulls down his boxers far enough to take him in her mouth.

He cannot quite suppress a sharp intake of breath. Despite everything, pleasure is filling him once again, and he feels the familiar growing desire that he always experiences when in bed with a pretty girl. There is a certain feeling of guilt also, when he thinks of Nikolai, wounded in hospital, but he wants Sonya all the same, he wants to find a moment of lust and bliss in her arms, and the blessed oblivion that comes after it.

Sonya licks him, then licks her lips, and then, in a slow, lascivious motion, pulls her dress over her head, exposing her slender, well-shaped body to his hungry eyes. Before he has sat up to touch her she is already over him, kissing the side of his neck, and he opens the fastenings of her bra while he has the chance. And already she is squatting by his hips again, trying to entirely get him out of his boxers.

Clearly, she really wants him. Well, of course it can only improve her situation, but she might have simply stroked and cuddled him. It is what he would probably have done in her situation. But no, she volunteers, employing all her skill.

"Wasn't that the wrong order?" he teases her as she removes his socks.

"Was it? How can I possibly appease you?"

See, see. Now she is joking already. "Appease me? Never. I shall have to _impale_ you. Deeply." And, damn it, this is what he wants, and he wants it very badly…

Sonya lets her bra slip off her arms and discards it. "What a cruel man you are."

"Indeed. Now don't be cruel in turn and keep me waiting."

"Maybe I should." She takes her panties off, and he licks his lips as he sees that she is watching him. "Or I could assault you."

"Assault me?" he repeats, amused at the suggestion. Getting assaulted by a girl? Well, it sounds quite tempting, in a way, to be honest…

She crawls over him, and before he knows what she is doing she has already impaled herself upon him, so that she now lies on top of him, taking his usual place. "Yes," she breathes against his ear, "I think I like the idea of assaulting you."

What a delightful little minx. Even if she is doing this just to make sure he will really take her away from here, he appreciates her effort. Her motifs do not matter, after all. What matters is the distraction she offers. "I must say it feels good to be a victim," he grins, and in response she takes him around the wrists and holds them down, pinning him to the bed. It would be easy to shake her off, slender as she is, but he allows her to, closing his eyes and throwing back his head so she can nibble his neck.

His father would not approve, it briefly flits through his mind, but he ignores the thought. This is none of his father's business, just like all of his private life is none of his business. Besides, that he is lying on his back does not necessarily mean he is not in control.

And curse her, she is good at what she does. His pleasure is very intense, and it even drives the thought of Nikolai out of his mind, keeping it at bay at the back of his mind, where he is still aware of what happened, but where it will not interfere with his current distraction. Soon he spurts out into her, and she holds him and strokes his hair until his breathing has slowed down to normal again. Then she climbs off him and instead spreads the blanket over him, pulling it up to the middle of his stomach.

"You're good," he murmurs. He would really like her to be his private mistress, his own pleasure slave, but how can he do it?

His slave. He suddenly feels bad about the thought.

Sonya kisses his cheek before slipping under the blanket with him. "Do you feel better now?"

"Yes. Quite." Not entirely well, of course, but it has really helped. "I should be off again," he reminds himself. He does not want to, but there is yet another party the restaurant has to be prepared for.

"Rest a little first, why don't you?" Sonya suggests. "Perhaps you should sleep for a bit. You look tired."

Is she starting to develop the habit of fussing over him? Somehow he tends to doubt that she does this just to make a good impression; if she were after that, she would offer him a wide variety of other sexual pleasures he might want to engage in. Or would she? Yes, this means she really likes him, in a way, even if it just is in comparison with the other men she has to be of service to.

Could he possibly use her as a spy? He likes the thought, but is not sure if it can be done in any way. But no use pondering it now; he will have to ask Nikolai.

Nikolai. He just cannot banish his wounded friend from his mind. Satisfied and content, he feels guilty that he is all well while Nikolai is not.

No, he is not well, not as long as Nikolai is not with him.

But soon his friend will be back. Soon. Soon everything will be alright again.

Except his father, of course…

"I'm the biggest loser in the world," he mutters. He should not say such a thing in front of Sonya, but he does not care. After all, she probably knows anyway.

Sonya kisses his cheek. "Don't say that. You're not."

"I am." That she contradicts him annoys him, paradox as it may seem. If the thought of Nikolai and of his father were not troubling his mind, he might laugh at it. "Who else is?"

"Sergei?" Sonya suggests promptly, and this time Kirill really laughs, despite himself. Later on he will be ashamed of this exchange, he is convinced of it, but for now he does not care.

And he should really leave now. Staying with a whore after being done with her is absurd. Yet he remains lying there, stretched out on his back comfortably and with Sonya cuddling up to him, as if they were lovers, not master and slave.

What would Nikolai do?

But of what use is wasting his attention on this, after he has trusted Sonya with far too much already? He has given her more information than he should have, and he has allowed her to see him weak.

"I can put some salve on your bruises," Sonya offers. "It helps."

"Don't worry about me. I'll be fine." He runs a hand through her dark hair. Besides, he should stop enjoying being fussed over, especially if it is a slave girl who is doing the fussing.

Why not? A slave is there to fuss over him if he wants her to.

But allowing her to is showing weakness.

What does he care? His father is not here to watch, so he can do whatever he likes.

That salve she has just mentioned, is this what the girls use after Sergei has beaten them? Probably it is. Kirill knows that Sergei beats them, although he has once told him to avoid that practice if possible because the customers might gain a bad impression, but then again, some of the customers beat the girls too, so why bother overmuch? Sergei has to make sure they don't beat them enough to harm them, but apart from that, they can do whatever they like with them, as long as they pay.

Once again Kirill imagines himself in the girls' position, himself as a teenage boy, kept a prisoner and forced to please disgusting old men, and spending a night with the son of his owner as the only reward he will ever get. But once again he pushes the thought away. Those little bitches have been stupid enough to follow their captors' promises, so they deserve what they got… or do they? He thinks of Tatiana, and while part of him hates the girl whose face he can barely remember for witnessing his utter failure in the eyes of his father, another wonders if he was not a young fool of thirteen himself once, naïve and ready to believe anything that would make his life better. He pictures himself cowering in the cellar, naked and defenceless, every promise broken, every dream shattered, and over him his older self, trying to destroy him utterly. Would he not have cried, and would he not have been unable to stop even if ordered not to cry anymore? The man becomes a monster to the boy, while the boy becomes a symbol of torment to the man, and they hate each other, loathe each other with every fibre in their bodies for what they do to each other… while they are both victims, victims of the same man.

This is what you did, Papa. You raped the little boy inside me.

"I really should go," he tells Sonya. "But I'll be back for you, I promise you that." And it will be the only promise to her that will not be broken, but why should she believe him if all the other promises were lies?

As he starts getting dressed, she sits on the bed, wrapped in the blanket, and watches him. "When will you come again?" she asks after some time.

"I don't know. Soon." Should he take her once more before he goes? No, not now. He has had what was necessary, and he will have her again next time, maybe more than once. But now it is time to return to the restaurant and help with the preparation for New Year's Eve. Besides, no more enjoying himself, out of solidarity for Nikolai.

Nikolai, who cannot be with him to celebrate tonight. Kirill does not believe in omens or anything of the kind, but still it bodes ill when Nikolai is not with him at the birth of the new year.

He shrugs into his shirt and buttons it up hastily. Better not to anger his father further. This is not the time to fight.

"Be safe," Sonya says softly.

"I will. You too, right?"

"Right." Sonya nods, smiling up at him, and her eyes glitter. "And I'll keep fighting, like you said."

Kirill sighs softly. "We both have our own battles, and I intend to win mine." And he prays to whatever deity who will listen that it will not merely remain an intention.

"I believe in you."

Did she really just say that? "Great. You and Nikolai makes two." The next moment he could bang his head against the wall – yes, play the loser yet again in front of her, very well done indeed! – but instead he gives her a smile, pretending it was nothing but a joke, and runs a hand through her hair. "Right, I'll see you soon, then."

She takes his hand in hers and kisses it, and he briefly caresses her under the chin. To her he has become a bright beacon of hope now, he knows, without truly meaning to, but it is a good feeling, in an odd, sentimental way, a comfort he will keep in mind when returning to his father. "And I hope Nikolai will get well soon."

"Trust him," Kirill says bravely, doing his best to believe himself, "he's bound to. He's very hard to kill."

As he steps out into the cool air, into a steady drizzle, he misses Nikolai as much as always. Normally they would take the car, but since he is alone, Kirill has not done so. It is not that he is nervous when he drives; he does not mind driving. It is something symbolic, in a way, to prove to his absent friend that the gap he leaves cannot be closed that easily. And even though Nikolai cannot see him now, it feels right.

Soon his hair is moist, but he does not care. The air is chilly; maybe he should have put on a sweater. But at least he can suffer with Nikolai in his own small way.

All the same, he quickens his pace. Is the rain growing stronger, or is he just imagining it?

At least Nikolai is out of the rain where he is.

As he trots down the stairs to the underground station, he brushes his wet curls out of his face, slipping through crowds of people pulling back their hoods or folding their umbrellas. Nobody pays attention to him. Back at home and among his father's associates, everybody knows who he is, but in the world outside he is a nobody, a nameless tall blond fellow in a black leather coat, a man like many others. And while he enjoys the power his father's name gives him, he often is only too glad to have the pressure of all the expectations taken away from him in this outside world where nobody knows the name of Semyon Pavlovich Leonov, and where Kirill Semyonovich is just another young man.

If they knew who he is, would they hate him, this young crime lord hidden behind the mask of an ordinary man?

And if they truly knew him, would they perhaps pity him?

No. He wants no pity. He is who he is, and there is nothing to be pitied about him. Maybe he has been weak lately, far too often, but his time is yet to come, his star yet to rise.

On the underground, he stands in the corner by the door as usual, with his arms crossed, and observes the people around him without truly paying attention. Sometimes he has secretly wished to be one of them, to lead a normal life, just like his old schoolmates do – like Charlie, for example, who works at an office now and still comes to the restaurant from time to time, often along with his parents and his girlfriend, or like Philip, who is a programmer, or Johnny, silly little Johnny, who now holds an important job with a bank. But then again, in the world where he comes from, his father may humiliate him, but he still is a god among insects, a lord, a master, just like the Greek meaning of his name, as his father has told him a long time ago. In what lies ahead, there is no world outside for him.

As he gets off the underground finally and heads back out into the rain, he sings to himself under his breath. "_Heaven queen, cover me in all that blue, little boy, such precious joy, is dead to the world…_" And he will readily say goodbye to anything outside, if only Nikolai comes back to be with him. "_Heaven queen, carry me away from all pain, all the same take me away, we're dead to the world…_"


	8. Reunited

_Would you do it with me  
Heal the scars and change the stars?  
Would you do it for me  
Turn loose the heaven within?_

-Nightwish, Ever Dream

Joy is bubbling up in him like a warm well, and it will not stop. He wants to hug Nikolai to him and hold him, and never, never let him go again. He wants this moment to freeze and stay for hours and hours on end, this bliss to never leave him.

"Come on," Nikolai urges him gently, and it feels so incredibly good to hear his voice again, "are you sure you don't want to go home?"

"Nah." Kirill laughs and tightens his grip around Nikolai's waist. "Forget it. Man, it's fucking New Year's Eve!"

"Fine." Nikolai is chuckling softly, like he does so often when something amuses him. Kirill has missed his chuckle and is glad to hear it again, though it has only been two days. But two days can be a horribly long time, sometimes. "Here's a suggestion: I take you somewhere where we can watch the fireworks, and where we're undisturbed at the same time. We need a little time together, you and I."

"Totally," Kirill agrees, beaming. "And girls and drinks and stuff, right?" No, no girls this time, just the two of them. For once, he really wants to be alone with his friend.

"I'm not in the mood for girls," Nikolai declines, and Kirill discovers that he feels grateful about this revelation. "And not for drinks, either. You've had your share already, little brother. What I had in mind," here he stops and takes Kirill by both shoulders, "is just us. Nobody else. Let's pretend there's nobody else alive in this city, just you and me."

Kirill looks into his eyes, reads the affection within them. "Nobody else," he repeats. "Nobody else in the world, right? Right, Kolya?" He cannot stop himself, he just has to embrace his friend for a moment, though he remembers just in time not to squeeze him too tightly since he was hurt just two days ago, two long, dark days, but still a short time for wounds to heal.

"Right, Kiryusha," Nikolai says fondly, brushing a few dishevelled blond strands out of Kirill's face. "Come on now, get into the car."

"I'm driving," Kirill offers. "You've been hurt."

"No way. You've been drinking again."

"I'm sober," Kirill protests. "Well, more or less." And he laughs, not because he finds his own remark funny, but because he is with Nikolai and the world is beautiful.

"Less," Nikolai says dryly. "Passenger seat, little brother. Sheesh." And he deftly fishes the key out of Kirill's coat pocket.

Kirill gives him a playful poke in the upper arm before he gets into the car, which is pleasantly warm after the cool night air of the riverside. He notices the motorbike parked nearby and understands how Nikolai got here – with that girl, then, but no matter, they are leaving now, leaving together, and she stays where she is, so why bother?

Well, Nikolai _did_ take suspiciously long to come after him, did he not?

Or was it really? Since he has really been drinking a bit too much yet again, in order to accomplish a deed thinking of which has sickened him, he has used the opportunity to slip off into a dark side alley for a moment, and he doubts it has taken him long, but still…

All the same, the thing with that girl is over now. It is time for the heroes to ride off into the sunset. The thought makes him smile.

Maybe it will really seem to the girl that they are riding off into the sunset, in a way, out of her life, out of her story. And a new story begins for her, with the child whose life he spared.

This reminds him of what Nikolai has told him as he was standing by the dark water, and the thought sobers him up a little. "Kolya…" He does not want to speak about it, nor about anything else that might distract him from his happiness, but he has to ask, he simply has to.

"Yes?" Nikolai has taken his place in the driver's seat. It seems to Kirill that his eyes roam over the motorbike, but only very briefly. Then he fastens his seatbelt and turns the ignition key.

"You said just now that my father would be… going away." Yes, this is what he said.

At first Nikolai does not answer, but concentrates on turning the car around. Then, when Kirill is about to clarify his question, he finally says, "Yes. He's going away. And his empire is all yours."

Kirill takes a deep breath. No, he is not delirious, he has not had that much. He is not dreaming either. "You're kidding me, right?" He laughs, but it is an uncertain laugh. What is Nikolai playing at? Is he plotting revenge? "You're fucking kidding me." And if he is, where will Kirill stand?

With Nikolai. Always with Nikolai, with the one who has shown him true friendship and brotherly love where there was no one else who would.

But can he betray his father?

Yes. He can, and he already has. He has let the child live, thereby defying his father's explicit orders, and he knows exactly what this means.

Is this why…

And then all the pieces of the puzzle clink into place, just like they have done earlier on, when remembering what the girl has told him about the baby being his father's child, his own sister. "You turned him in." It is an outrageous thing to say, but once pronounced, the logical conclusion pulls him along, and he cannot stop himself. "It was you who picked up the diary from that midwife girl. You read it, so you knew about this already when she told me, and you turned my father in when you realised he had set you up. _You_ sent them to get his blood. Man…" His thoughts and feelings are in turmoil. "You fucking turned my father in to the police." He feels dizzy, as if the car were spinning around him, and numb, as if this realisation had been the blow of a sledgehammer. "I can't believe it, Kolya. I just can't fucking believe it." He should feel angry, no, truly furious, but he cannot quite say if he does. He should hate Nikolai, but he knows that he does not.

You're either with him or with me, Nikolai has said. It must have been the easiest choice Kirill has made in his life.

But this does not mean that an easy choice cannot hurt.

Nikolai stops the car by the roadside, something he does not do normally. When he turns the motor off, everything is strangely quiet suddenly. Another car's headlights briefly flicker and disappear again at a distance, but apart from that, they are alone in the dim glow of the street lights. "Listen, Kiryusha," Nikolai begins, switching into Russian, "there is a time for everything, and for everyone. And this is _your_ time. Far too long has he kicked you around like a dog, and far too long have I been forced to watch. Don't ask me to witness it any longer. Now he will be gone for some time, and when he returns, you will be strong, and he will no longer be able to break you. The stars are your birthright, and it is time you truly claim them. You're the boss now, little brother, how's that?"

But Kirill can only shake his head in disbelief. "You're kidding me, right? Tell me you're kidding me." And yet he knows that Nikolai is serious. God, what should he do? What can he do? He is caught between his father and his friend, and he has to choose.

With him or with me, Nikolai has said. With his father or with Nikolai.

With you, Kolya. Always with you.

He sees that Nikolai is watching him and draws a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "I'm with you, Kolya. But you owe me an explanation." How he wishes that it had not come to this, that everything would be back to normal!

But on the other hand… isn't it a relief to know his father will be gone for some time?

He should not think like that.

But all the same, he does.

Nikolai's hand suddenly touches his. "I did it for us, Kiryusha. For me, because he meant to have me killed, and for you, because he was killing you himself, slowly but certainly. I'm not letting him harm me, but I'd rather have him harm me than my brother."

Once again Kirill is at a loss for words. Instead he takes Nikolai's hand in his and squeezes it gently. He knows that he is betraying his father, but his father has betrayed him first, and manipulated and humiliated him countless times, while Nikolai would never do any of this. Nikolai is there for him, and Nikolai cares.

And I'm the boss now.

Kirill feels elated, but scared at the same time. How is he to handle this all? His father has taught him a lot, but he feels completely unable to run the whole family business on his own.

No, not on his own. "But you'll be with me too, won't you? Help me with the whole business? As my right-hand man?"

"As your most loyal follower." Nikolai squeezes Kirill's hand in turn, then lets go of it and starts the motor once more.

Warm affection rushes through Kirill and makes him want to hug his friend to him, but already Nikolai is steering the car back onto the road. "I can't do this alone," he admits instead, hoping Nikolai will interpret this as a sign of trust and not of weakness.

"You won't be alone, brother," Nikolai assures him. "By the way, you're sleeping at my place tonight. I want you out of the way when they come for your father."

"You've got it all planned, you fucking devious bastard." Kirill cannot but admire his friend.

Nikolai chuckles. "I'm beating your father by means of his own favourite occupation: scheming."

Despite feeling guilty about it, Kirill grins at this. "And you're fucking unbelievably good at it."

"Thank you. Now where do you want to go?"

"Dunno." To have a few drinks would be the logical option, but somehow Kirill is not convinced if he is in the right mood for it. What he has heard about his father has sobered him up far too much. "Somewhere where we can see the fireworks, I guess, like you said." He glances at his watch. "Not even an hour left 'til midnight." To underline this, a cascade of gold erupts into the night sky at some distance, and Kirill faintly smiles at the memory of how much he used to love the fireworks as a child.

"Very well. I suggest somewhere by the riverside."

"Wherever," Kirill says. As long as Nikolai is with him, it does not matter much.

"Fasten your seatbelt, will you?"

Kirill sighs, but does so. "It's not as if you're likely to have an accident, man," he protests half-heartedly.

"Not me, but somebody else perhaps." Of course, Nikolai always fastens his own seatbelt. "So, what have you been up to while I spent two days in a cosy bed and with personnel around me?"

Kirill laughs at this. "Oh, nothing much. Same as usual. Except I got a nasty thrashing from my father when I confronted him about you." Serves him right that he'll now see prison from the inside again, Kirill thinks angrily, but he tries to make his voice sound light and casual. "Dealt with an affair of import, then fucked Sonya for a bit… well, funnily we spent more time talking than fucking, actually," he admits, "out of solidarity for you, sort of."

"Ah, you needn't have. Once I was brought to hospital, life was looking pretty rosy really." Nikolai smiles grimly. "I had a soft blanket, a huge pillow and plenty of time for scheming."

"And that midwife of yours to take care of you, by any chance?" Kirill teases him, but at the same time he feels a faint trace of irritation… or should he call it jealousy?

Nikolai shrugs. "She looked in once she found out I was around, but obviously I didn't get to fuck her, despite the nice bed and everything."

"Shame, eh?" Kirill grins. That Nikolai speaks about her in such a dispassionate way is calming. "Hey, if you ever get to fuck her after all, I want a go too."

"Man, what is it with you and girls?" Nikolai laughs. "You'd mount anything female that holds still long enough! What makes you so horny all the time?"

"Why are you such a bloody ascetic?" Kirill teases him back. "You could do with a regular fuck, seriously. Oh, and I don't take _anything_ female. I want them good-looking, skilled and willing. Do you think your little midwife falls under that category?"

"Ask her, why don't you?" Nikolai swats at him playfully. "But not your normal lame method, mind you. _Hi, I'm Kirill; would you like to see my bedroom?_"

Kirill pokes him in the shoulder, but is careful not to make him turn the wheel by accident. Something has occurred to him. "Eh, Kolya. Didn't you deal with her uncle or something?"

"Yes," Nikolai says curtly. "But not the way you think."

"What d'you mean?" What the hell has Nikolai been up to lately?

"I was plotting again," Nikolai says simply. "I'll tell you about all of it tomorrow, shall I?"

"Hm." Kirill does not like the idea that Nikolai has been playing a game of his own behind everybody's back, but then again, Nikolai is his best friend, his brother, and whatever he does, Kirill trusts him. "Fine, tomorrow, then. We make all the plans tomorrow. Like what we do with that goddamn fucking Turkish swine of a traitor."

"Azim?" The corners of Nikolai's mouth twitch only very slightly. "Yes, we'll discuss him tomorrow; I'm not quite sure myself yet. Tonight it's just us."

"Just us," Kirill repeats, nodding, but he feels that something has come between them now, a crack in their bond.

For some time they drive on in silence. Strange, Kirill thinks, how there were so many things he wanted to tell Nikolai coming to his mind while Nikolai was away, but now, when he is reunited with him, his mind is blank. No, to be exact, there are some things he wants him to know, but he cannot quite put them into words. They are just feelings, but he has never been good at expressing his emotions, or rather, he has always refused to, because it makes him vulnerable, and he does not like sharing too much of his inmost thoughts.

This way, he and Nikolai share a path, but at the same time they walk alone – shoulder to shoulder, but alone. It is a sad thought, somehow.

Well, maybe he could give it another try. "It's good to have you back," he says, but it sounds awkward to his own ears, so obvious and empty.

Nikolai smiles at the dark street outside. "I will always come back, little brother. I promised you that."

Anything Nikolai says sounds better than what Kirill can come up with, no matter how hard he tries. If Kirill were not so very glad to be with him, he would be frustrated yet again. "Maria missed you too." This is easier to say than the silly _I missed you_. "But I didn't really tell her what happened. She's too young. I want to let her keep her innocence for some time, sort of, if you get my meaning." He pauses, thoughtlessly gazing out at a white car passing them; he cannot make out the type in the darkness. "I try not to speak ill of my father in front of her, too, because I don't want to hurt her. It's bad enough for me that he's not like he used to be, a long time ago – and even then he was a manipulative bastard, only I didn't see it, of course." The anger at all the many times he has been betrayed is still there, seething underneath the joy. "Did I ever tell you how exactly we came here, and what was my part in it?"

"Only vaguely. You were just a little boy, weren't you?"

"I was twelve," Kirill says. This is a safer topic, so talking about it coherently is a lot easier. "I liked football quite a lot, and I used to support Spartak Moscow."

"You still do, don't you?" Nikolai puts in.

"Well, sort of. I don't really keep track with all of their matches anymore." Kirill shrugs. "Anyway, back then their archrival was Dynamo Moscow, and everybody knew it was the club of the Ministry of the Interior, and of course the KGB, just like Lokomotiv was the railways club and Spartak sort of belonged to the kolkhozes. Anyway, we talked about football at school, of course, and sometimes got into fights over it, especially the Spartak and Dynamo supporters. Well, one day I told another kid Dynamo sucked balls hardcore for being the fucking KGB club. Besides, I kept refusing to call Zenit Saint Petersburg Zenit Leningrad. As you can imagine, I got reported, and Papa got into serious trouble."

"Did he punish you?"

"Punish me? No way." Kirill laughs. "He called me a hero and bought me a Spartak jersey – the one Maria occasionally wears now. I was so damn proud, man. But of course, this was what he had wanted all along. _He_ kept telling me those things, because he wanted me to repeat them and get into trouble – another good reason why he could argue he was a refugee for political reason, and that they had even persecuted his twelve-year-old son… who was too young and foolish to see him through."

"You know," Nikolai says after a brief pause, "that he would knowingly endanger his own son doesn't surprise me at all."

"And still I think he loved me back then, in his way." It is said very easily, but cannot be taken back. Yet this is Nikolai; Nikolai will not laugh at such a sentiment.

"Yes, he probably did, though maybe only in expectancy of the man you should, in his opinion, become."

"Possibly." Again Kirill shrugs, although the seatbelt is a bit in the way. "But I failed him entirely."

"Not a bad thing, in my opinion." Nikolai says it very lightly, but to Kirill, this means a lot. "Try not to worry about anything tonight, will you? You need to get your mind off things for a bit."

"Right," Kirill agrees readily. "I'll try." He wants to ask what exactly Nikolai meant with that remark about failing his father not being a bad thing, but he suddenly feels as awkward as a little boy. "Let's go and have a couple of drinks, shall we?"

Nikolai sighs as he takes a turn to the left. "Maybe it would be good if you found a way of distracting yourself without that much alcohol. I'm sure you can."

"Don't you go forbidding me my vices," Kirill protests, half amused, half irritated. He knows himself that he drinks too much at times, and that it has been pretty bad recently; he does not like having it pointed out like this.

"Calm down. Not all of them."

"Fine," Kirill says. "I don't drink, you don't smoke. How's that?"

"Smoking doesn't interfere with my behaviour," Nikolai points out smugly.

"But with your health," Kirill argues, imitating his friend's smug tone. "If you want to spend the rest of your life coughing up black slime, and then die of some nasty sort of cancer, way to go."

"Don't get me started on your liver, pal," Nikolai retorts dryly.

"Hey, stay away from my fucking liver!" Kirill protests. "Eh, hang on. Leave my liver out of this, I mean."

But Nikolai is laughing already. "Who do you think you are, Prometheus?"

"Who? Ah, right, Prometheus, sure." Kirill laughs despite himself. To hell with a _vor_'s dignity.

"Do you actually know who I'm talking about?"

"You think I'm stupid? That's the guy who nicked the fire from the fucking gods and had an eagle munch up his innards for punishment. And the fucking stuff grew back every day."

"See here, someone knows his Greek mythology," Nikolai states. "_Nicked the fire from the fucking gods and had an eagle munch up his innards_. Indeed."

"Well, it's true! I mean, as far as mythology is, obviously." Kirill rolls his eyes, although he fears this is lost on Nikolai, since his friend is concentrating on the road. "As soon as you stop the car, I'll hit you."

"Thanks for the warning, that's very considerate of you."

And once again they are coming closer, Kirill feels, as they engage in a friendly banter. Everything is back to normal again.

No, he recalls, it is not. Not when Nikolai is plotting behind his back.

Plotting in Kirill's own interest.

Why does life have to be so difficult when it could be simply marvellous for once? Why can happiness not be pure and untainted for just one time? Why do his wishes always hurt him in some way when they come true?

And the moment when he should have told Nikolai what he truly means to him is gone now, too. He has missed the opportunity, and it will not come back.

Here you go again, you idiot. You're lousy at anything you do.

The silence is brief, but to Kirill it is unbearable after only a few seconds. So he gives his friend an account of what happened while he was in hospital, of Misha's message, his confrontation with his father, his encounter with Sonya and what he intends to do with her, of how his father had to give a blood sample, how for once it was him who realised what was the reason behind it, how his father offered him a chance to be redeemed, in a way, by sending him to the hospital – or was this only what he hoped it would be? –, and how he abducted the baby. He leaves nothing out, except that his father called him a queer, because he does not want Nikolai to assume that his father may be right – which is a foolish sentiment, of course, but he still refuses to repeat it.

And how can he ever express his feelings for Nikolai if his friend might think the wrong thing of him?

"Well, and then you came," he finishes at last, which is a lame ending, but it does not matter. "And not even in a suit, for a change."

Nikolai shrugs. He seems to feel quite comfortable in jeans, polo shirt and hooded sweater. "You've seen me in civilian clothes before."

"But they never were quite as crumpled and washed out," Kirill remarks. "Not that I mind, though."

"Well, I had to take what I could get," Nikolai says. "Or rather, what Anna could get me. Luckily she knew I was leaving, or I would never have found you that fast."

"Anna, eh? What's she to you?" This really is jealousy, Kirill realises, and it is ridiculous. Is he a little girl or what? But still, he does not want any woman to get too close to Nikolai, not emotionally, anyway. If he just takes her to bed for a night, Kirill does not care, because then she means nothing to him, but a woman who means more to him, who he might even fall in love with…

"C'mon off it, man," Nikolai protests, and Kirill dreads that his friend has realised why he just asked. "I told you, she's pretty. But that's it."

And still Kirill cannot stop himself. "What were you doing all that time, after I left you with her? Why didn't you come after me, eh?"

Nikolai gives him a predatory leer that succeeds in making him grin. "What do _you_ do when left alone with a pretty girl, and your pal gives you a little time because he's yet again pissing up against a wall somewhere?"

"Hey, how d'you know?"

"Your fly's still half open," Nikolai answers matter-of-factly. "Besides," he adds as Kirill starts fumbling with his buttons, "you do that all the time when you've been drinking, and while you haven't been drinking overmuch this time, you were nervous, or rather, agitated. Moreover, you were upset about your father, and it's often a little act of private rebellion. Any more questions?"

"Stop analysing me," Kirill says flatly. "It's getting scary."

Nikolai laughs. "I'm just telling you when you're becoming predictable. Right, here we are. A short distance from Victoria Embankment. Not exactly private, but certainly a nice place."

He parks the car by the roadside, and Kirill climbs out and stretches his limbs. The cold night air gently caresses his face. For some reason he is glad to be out under the sky again, but he cannot tell why. What a strange rollercoaster of emotions he has gone through while travelling with his friend! Perhaps the winter breeze calms him down.

And it helps banishing this Anna from his mind at last. Her image flies away on the wind.

"Come on." Nikolai touches his elbow, and he wants to place an arm around his shoulders, as he does so often, but thinks better of it when he sees a group of passers-by and hears the voices from ahead. Nothing wrong with putting an arm around a friend, but still, after the recent accusations… Yet before he has come to a decision, it is Nikolai who suddenly has an arm around Kirill's shoulders, like he has done when leading him away from the river. Kirill smiles to himself, but resists the temptation of placing an arm around his friend's waist in turn, instead simply allowing Nikolai to lead him towards where all the noise is coming from. Soon he finds himself amid a jolly crowd of revellers that fills the river banks. In a shower of sparks of red and gold, an exploding rocket illuminates the Tower Bridge, casting it into a bright light before they fade out, the sparks glittering feebly as they sink towards the waves. "Well, happy New Year," Nikolai says.

"You too, Kolya. But it's not midnight yet."

They make their way through the crowd, until they reach the Obelisk by the riverside, attended by the pair of stone sphinxes. Kirill wonders if Nikolai knows about the popular myth that this is a haunted place, but then again, why bother him with that silly superstition? Nikolai was right, this is a nice place to watch the fireworks, if perhaps not quite as private as Kirill would have liked it to be. But he will certainly not complain, or else…

This is paranoia, he tells himself. Why do you think everybody sees a queer in you?

Because everybody does.

Try not to be such a fucking idiot, Kirill thinks, exasperated with himself. But still the uncomfortable feeling remains, like the buzzing of a fly at the back of his head.

They lean against the sphinx on the right side, the one with the shrapnel marks on its pedestal, which have fascinated Kirill greatly when he was a child. Near them, there is a group of young men, but Kirill does not heed them. Like Nikolai has said, for now there is nobody in the world except the two of them.

Nikolai shivers slightly, and Kirill gives him his coat, pointing out that he is wearing a warm sweater, and making it clear that this is an order. Finally Nikolai agrees and gratefully puts it on, and Kirill feels as smug as he has not felt for some time, not since the day when he managed to get the bottles of wine so cheaply and was showing them to Nikolai… before his father arrived and spoiled everything, and then it resulted in a quarrel with Nikolai as well, which was even worse.

"Hey," Kirill says, trying to sound as casual as he can, "sorry about accusing you of trying to steal my place with my father. It was stupid of me." Again he discovers that apologising can be a lot easier than he usually thinks it is.

"No offence taken."

Kirill sees that one of the men nearby is glancing over at them and switches into Russian, just to be safe. "Try not to laugh. You're my best friend in the world. More like my brother, really."

"Why would that be a laughing matter? Oh, Kiryusha…" Nikolai playfully tousles his hair. "I never would laugh at you, not when you're being sincere."

"And when am I ever sincere?" Kirill jokes, because he still feels safer when he is not.

"A justified question," Nikolai states, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing his hand in frustration. "No cigarettes."

"Good for your health," Kirill grins.

"Do you have any?"

"No. I don't smoke." He laughs. "Not much, anyway."

"And when you do, you always smoke mine."

"Exactly." Why buy cigarettes when he approximately smokes once a month? He does not like it much, anyway. "Here's an idea: Why don't you quit entirely and start smoking a pipe instead? It's much more stylish."

"It would be Tolkien style, certainly." Nikolai chuckles. "If you really don't drink for the rest of the winter, I'll think on it."

"Hey, hey!" Kirill protests. "No alcohol _at all_? I won't get drunk if you want, but you can't forbid me –"

"You've had so much recently that you'll be on a permanent high 'til spring," Nikolai cuts in, smiling. "No, seriously. Give the men a show of true character."

"They don't give a fuck if I drink or not!"

"Yes they will. You're the boss now."

Well, Nikolai certainly has a point, although Kirill still sees nothing wrong with a small glass from time to time. However, the question is if he will be able to discipline himself.

Yes, he decides, he will. He can, if he only wants to, especially if his father is not around to cause him to want to forget something all the time. He can be in charge, and he can show willpower. And Nikolai believes in him. "Fine," he agrees. "I'm the boss, I won't drink, and if I ever catch you smoking without asking my permission first, your name will be Gollum from then on."

"Tyrant," Nikolai says and laughs. "Now wait a minute, who is it Maria always begs to do the Gollum voice?"

"That proves nothing. She wants me to do _everything_. Besides, she thinks my best role still is Captain Hook."

"No doubt of it," Nikolai agrees with a grin, and at the thought of how his friend had to play the part of the crocodile once Kirill grins as well.

But as it occurs to him that Nikolai still has not told him what exactly it was he has done with that girl of his, Kirill feels the grin fading once more.

For some time they watch the colourful bursts of light in silence, shoulder to shoulder, and yet so far apart somehow. The minutes drift by, but Kirill cannot find the courage to speak. What should he say? All that comes to his mind is unimportant. And how could he ever express the turmoil of sentiments, the maelstrom raging inside him as joy battles anguish and hope cannot overcome loss?

It is but ten minutes from midnight now. The old year is flying away, fading rapidly, and with it the chapter of their story that still needs an ending, so that they can make a new beginning. But Kirill is no poet; he cannot finish it.

"So, little brother," Nikolai says at last. "This is it, eh?"

"Yeah, guess this is it." Kirill shrugs a little uncomfortably.

"Was it a good year?"

"I dunno. What d'you think?"

"Yes," Nikolai says firmly. "Yes, it was."

"In that case, it was." Kirill watches the hand on the huge face of the Big Ben move forward a fraction. It was, and soon it will be gone. This creates a vaguely sad atmosphere, a feeling he remembers from previous years.

"And a good time ahead, I hope."

"No doubt, as long as you're with me." That was cheesy, Kirill thinks angrily, but at least it was _something_.

"Always, Kiryusha, always." Kirill feels how his friend gently takes his hand in his, and he does not pull away, despite being in public. Nobody is paying attention to them, anyway, and their hands are half hidden in the folds of his coat that is lying around Nikolai's shoulders. "Man, no Chechen in the world can keep me away from you."

Despite himself, Kirill laughs at this. It seems that joy is gaining the upper hand once more. "You know, I'm glad you didn't say something overly poetic this time, because I seriously suck at this kind of thing. You're so good with words, and here I come, a great big fucking buffoon as soon as I open my mouth. All I could do is quote some Nightwish lyrics at you, but that's about as poetic as it's gonna get with me."

"As I keep telling you, don't worry about it." Nikolai gives his hand a little squeeze. "I'm not your girlfriend or anything, so I don't expect poetry from you."

"Eh. Then I'd probably have to ask you to marry me or something in this situation."

Nikolai chuckles. "Be glad I'm not."

"You bet I am. Although…" Kirill takes a deep breath. "If you were a woman, I'd totally fall in love with you."

After this, Kirill does not dare to look at him, but he can hear the smile in his friend's voice. "Coming from someone with the romantic capacity of a refrigerator, this must be a real compliment."

"Hey, it's _you_ who's the fridge person among us!" Kirill protests. Above them, bright fireworks dye the dark sky red for an instant. "You're the cold sort of guy."

"Only on the outside."

"I know."

And as they fall silent once again, Kirill feels more comfortable than just before, because they have reached a certain understanding now. He can feel the bond again, warm and gentle against his chilling fears and doubts, just as soothing as the touch of Nikolai's hand that still rests in his. The story is almost complete now.

"Any resolutions?" Nikolai speaks up again after some time. His features are sharply outlined in the changing flashes of red, green and gold.

"No. I never stick to them anyway. But perhaps…" Should he make another attempt? "Something like a pledge, maybe." A love pledge? Does he dare to utter it at all? And if he does, will Nikolai not turn away from him because he will despise him, just like his father? No, Nikolai does not care about what others say, and he has certainly never yet pulled away from his touch. To be exact, the way Nikolai has held him and stroked his arm and caressed his cheek at times goes beyond what his father would find acceptable just as well.

Go ahead, say it. Don't chicken out again. "Kolya…"

No, he cannot say it. He absolutely cannot.

"Yes?" Nikolai's voice is very gentle, as gentle as earlier on, when he has taken the baby from him. Whatever he says, Nikolai will not laugh.

But how can he say _that_? Damn it, this is what one tells a woman, but certainly not his best friend!

But Nikolai is different. Nikolai is special.

"Come on," Nikolai teases him fondly, squeezing his hand – which is not exactly what friends do, either – "are you going to tell me before next year?"

Alright. No backing out now.

Why does his throat have to feel so dry suddenly? And why does it seem to him that his palms are moist with perspiration? Damn, Nikolai is going to notice this, he is still holding his hand, after all!

Kirill summons up all his courage. "I love you," he mumbles, wishing he could disappear into a crack in the ground.

And just as the clock strikes midnight and the crowd erupts into cheers, Nikolai pulls him into a tight embrace, ignoring all the people around them. "That's the nicest thing anyone has told me for a very long time."

Kirill nuzzles his face into the collar of his coat, feeling his cheeks positively burning, while Nikolai's fingers play with the curls at the back of his head. That his friend has not backed away from him or laughed makes him fall in love with him all over again, and for once he is not ashamed of the sentiment.

So softly that his voice is almost inaudible above the bursts of the fireworks greeting the new year, Nikolai whispers, "I will follow you, my brother, my captain, my king."

Of course Kirill recognises the slightly altered quote, and it makes him smile. "Hey, that wasn't in the book," he teases his friend as Nikolai lets go of him again and gazes up at the colourfully illuminated sky. "Since when have you substituted it for the movie, you expert?"

"Since when have you been a book purist?" Nikolai retorts, clearly amused.

Kirill shrugs. Of course he is not, but there is only so much personal sincerity he can take without feeling embarrassed, so resorting to teasing is a welcome relief, although this moment just now has meant very much to him. "One of us has to, right?"

Still, it is childish of him to change the tone, just because he has an odd tendency to feel awkward when he is serious in personal matters. He should get used to it. So he adds, "Want some genuine Tolkien?" This is a compromise; he is not entirely serious, but he is not joking either.

"Go ahead, then."

So Kirill speaks the words that have, for some reason, always brought tears to his eyes when reading them, words that have burned themselves into his memory like few other parts of _The Lord of the Rings_. He has never expected to utter them to anyone, because back then he has never thought he would ever know such friendship and brotherly love. "I'm glad you're with me, Kolya, here at the end of all things."

And this is how this story ends, on the Embankment on New Year's Eve, with the birth of a new year. But life goes on. It always does. The world turns towards morning, and a new story is about to begin, a new chapter in an open book.

"So," Nikolai says at last. "My compliments and best wishes to the newly crowned king."

"My compliments to the man behind the throne," Kirill smiles. Whatever he is going to do in the difficult times that lie ahead, it will be lightened by the presence of a brother and friend.

"Well, Kiryusha, isn't this one of your excuses to celebrate?" Nikolai gives him a playful nudge in the ribs. "You might buy me a drink."


	9. A New Day

_Never opened myself this way  
Life is ours, we live it our way  
All these words I don't just say  
And nothing else matters_

Trust I seek and I find in you  
Every day for us something new  
Open mind for a different view  
And nothing else matters

Never cared for what they do  
Never cared for what they know  
But I know

So close no matter how far  
Couldn't be much more from the heart  
Forever trusting who we are  
And nothing else matters

-Metallica, Nothing Else Matters

Kirill drowsily blinks into the morning light, his gaze roaming over the unfamiliar white ceiling. Then he remembers where he is, and what has happened during the previous night comes back to him, and he sighs and chooses to close his eyes from reality once again.

No, not from all of reality.

He rolls over onto his stomach and puts an arm around Nikolai's middle, resting his head against his shoulder. Nikolai stirs slightly, but does not wake. His breath is very soft and even; he must be fast asleep still. No surprise that he is exhausted, after all he has been through.

When Kirill places a hand on Nikolai's stomach, he can feel through his friend's polo shirt that there still is a bandage beneath it.

He feels bad for not going home with him directly the night before, but then again, at least Nikolai has had some fun as well, and neither of them will forget this New Year's night so soon.

It must be well into the morning already, judging from the bright light coming from outside, but Kirill has no idea how long they have slept, and he does not want to wake Nikolai by sitting up and reaching over him for his watch. Instead, he decides to go back to sleep, just for a quarter of an hour or so, or for half an hour maybe. If it is that late already, his bladder will wake him soon enough anyway.

Slowly his consciousness drifts over into a state half between sleeping and waking. Strange images and bizarre fragments of thoughts flicker and fade, and he knows they are part of dreams already, but is yet awake enough to recognise them for what they are. Maria is holding a strange colourful bird in her hands, and sparkles fly from its feathers and settle on the ground like fallen snowflakes. Vulturus walks past on his hind legs and asks if he can borrow his game controller, followed by his younger sister, who tells him to stay away from her viola, but he knows he needs the viola, and that this is important… Ah, no, rubbish. This is a silly dream again. What would he need a viola for, when he cannot even play it properly? Once he was taught to read the notation, and technically it is not very different from the violin, but he has forgotten most of it already. And, damn it, Vulturus does not run around on two legs and talk, and he certainly does not play video games. This is so idiotic. Kirill chuckles quietly to himself without opening his eyes, but already he sees a little yellow animal flitting past, and he wonders whether Nikolai might have let it out of its glass cage…

He must have fallen asleep then, for he wakes from a hand brushing the hair out of his face. "Good morning, little brother," Nikolai's voice says beside him, in a very warm, fond tone.

He opens his eyes and finds himself looking directly into Nikolai's. Still he is lying on his stomach, more or less, with his head on Nikolai's upper arm and his arm around his waist, and Nikolai is trying to get some order into his hair with his free hand, just like his father used to do it when he was a little boy. "Good morning," he mumbles. The cut on Nikolai's cheek really looks nasty, still crusted with blood and hardly healed. "You okay?"

"Quite perfect, considering the circumstances." Nikolai chuckles dryly. "I even got a nice big human hot-water-bottle, with the only disadvantage that he fidgets around a bit in his sleep."

"Sorry." Kirill ought to poke him for this remark, but he feels too lazy to move a limb.

"Never mind. Now let me out, or I'm forced to piss on the mattress. I doubt that's what you'd call a nice warm bath."

Kirill groans and lifts his head so Nikolai can pull out his arm from underneath it. "No thanks, man."

"Good boy." Nikolai playfully tousles his hair before he sits up. His right arm still is covered in patches on the underside, Kirill sees as Nikolai reaches out to pick up his watch from the nightstand. "It's half past ten in the morning. High time to be up, actually."

"Totally not," Kirill grumbles into the pillow. He still feels drowsy, and he would prefer Nikolai to just be quiet and curl up beside him once more.

"How about breakfast, then?" Nikolai points out. He has gotten up already and is stretching his limbs cautiously. It seems that all his major injuries are covered by his polo shirt, apart from the cut on his cheek and those on his forearm, of course; his legs seem unharmed, except if there is any injury hidden beneath his underpants. Kirill hopes for his friend's sake that there is none. "I don't have much here, but there's some toast and butter and honey. And cocoa."

Kirill smiles. This sounds tempting. "In bed," he suggests.

"There's no way I'm letting you drink cocoa in bed."

Kirill still smiles after Nikolai has gone out. Rolling over onto his back, he wraps the blanket around himself, enjoying the warmth and trying not to think of what will soon expect him: his father arrested, and the high-ranking _vory_ fighting over the powerful patriarch's succession. Of course, as his son Kirill has a strong claim, but there are others who might decide it is their time now. Who will be loyal to him, apart from Nikolai, who is the most important of all? Now it pays off that he has always done his best to get along well with everyone, from buying them drinks to providing entertainment. He has no real enemies, at least none he is aware of. Misha will probably stand with him, and Misha is a valuable enforcer, and when Misha sides with him, so will several others. As for contacts, his father has let him handle the family business with Nabokov on his own recently, so Nabokov would have very little reason not to continue with him. He has been introduced to Uchanev, and he has assisted his father in making that deal. As for the exporters, he trusts none of them, but Nikolai has his own contacts in the car business, which will suffice at first, no doubt. Moreover, such structures do not fall apart simply because someone is arrested. It will not be the business that will prove troublesome, it will be asserting his authority that will – although authority also comes with a business working well.

I can do this, Kirill thinks. I can be boss. Or rather, _we_ can do this, Nikolai and me, ruling the underworld of this bloody city, the Steward and the King.

But which one of them is which?

Perhaps it is time for Kirill to stop trying to command and lead Nikolai and learn to follow him instead. Life is so much easier, he feels, when he is honest and directly admits what he does not know and cannot do. With Nikolai, he does not have to be ashamed of anything.

Moreover, Nikolai knows him so well that there is no use pretending.

They will do this together, combining their knowledge and skills. Kirill has the contacts and the good name, and Nikolai has the experience of a rough life out there. There will be two kings, not just one, taking it in turns to lead, and never deciding anything on their own. There will be two kings, but they will be as one.

Nikolai returns to the room, and Kirill hopefully holds up the blanket for him. Normally Nikolai does not stay in bed for long, as far as he knows, but this time he really makes an exception and crawls back in, stretching out on his back beside him once more. As he lies down, he groans softly, and Kirill fears that his state has not improved much. "You sure you're okay?"

"Fine," Nikolai insists. "Just tired. I know this is atypical, but I won't exhaust myself too much. I'm going to need my strength."

"Right," Kirill mutters glumly. Indeed, for what lies ahead… "Anything I can do?"

"Make me a cup of warm milk later on, perhaps," Nikolai suggests. "I'd certainly appreciate that."

"Sure. No problem. You said there's honey, but do you have cinnamon?"

"Kitchen whiz kid," Nikolai says fondly.

"No way as good as my father." The next moment, he wishes he did not mention him, but now it is too late. "Speaking of that, you still owe me a couple of explanations… but let's postpone it for a bit, shall we? And take a nap first?" Maybe he can persuade Nikolai to rest for a little longer. "You just said you won't exhaust yourself too much."

Nikolai yawns. "Hmm… Sounds tempting, to be honest. Keep me warm, will you?"

Has he really just said…? "You want me to snuggle up to you?"

"Yes, come on," Nikolai grumbles while stretching his limbs. "It's not as if anyone is watching us."

"Yeah… right." Kirill rolls over and places his arm around Nikolai's middle once more. "Doesn't that feel slightly queer to you, in a way? I don't see it that way," he hastily assures him, "so don't worry."

"Wouldn't mind if you did. It's you, after all." Nikolai places a hand on his side, and Kirill can feel its warmth through his T-shirt. "I wouldn't like you any less if you were a queer, except if I caught you with your hand down my pants without asking for permission first." He laughs and hugs Kirill. "Now get some sleep, little brother. You've had a rough time, too."

Kirill is glad to realise that reaching into his friend's underwear would unsettle him just as well. While his desire to touch Nikolai scares him sometimes, at least there are some parts of his anatomy he does not want to fumble.

But what Nikolai just said… it was pretty much an invitation. Kirill fears that he is blushing furiously at the thought, he who cannot recall ever having blushed around a woman for many years. He pictures kissing him – a mind-boggling idea, of course, to say the very least – and the feeling increases. So he concentrates on Sonya instead, imagines running his hands all over her as she is caressing his bare skin in turn, and there definitely is something going on in his boxers now – and then Sonya suddenly, without transition, turns into Nikolai, and they continue touching each other as if nothing had happened… God, whatever is the matter with him lately?

This is bad for him. He should get away from Nikolai, as fast as possible. His place is with the _vory_, with his father.

With his father, who may yet still be free! He must warn him. It is his duty.

No. He has made his choice. His father has turned his back on him a long time ago, has tormented and humiliated and betrayed him. His place is here, with Nikolai, even if his feelings for Nikolai confuse and unsettle him currently.

No, not his feelings. There is nothing wrong with loving a brother as dearly as he loves Nikolai. It is rather his insatiable lust playing havoc with his sexual preferences.

Well, something that can certainly be cured by sating his desire with a girl regularly.

Sonya. This is the perfect opportunity. "I think I'm making Sonya my private mistress," he tells Nikolai. He has mentioned it the night before already, but his friend has not really reacted to it back then because there were more important things. "Means I'll keep her with me. Now my father's gone, I can do whatever I like."

Nikolai laughs at the announcement. "Why the fuck do you need a private mistress?"

"Because I'm damn horny all the time."

"Nothing your hand couldn't cure, though, I guess."

"She's better than my hand is." Besides, he is less likely to have dirty thoughts about Nikolai then. "You can pick one too, if you like, as the other boss."

Nikolai briefly strokes his side. "Look, I really appreciate that you're ready to share everything with me. I'd just be careful with calling me that in front of anyone else."

Kirill sighs. How he hates family politics! "Yeah, sure, I'll try and come across as authoritative, but I don't want to do that at the cost of cutting you down to size all the time. I want the lot to have some fucking respect for you, partner. Actually," he wonders aloud, "if I ran the import and you the export…"

"I can handle it for you, if you like," Nikolai offers readily. "But I still want you to at least appear to be in charge, and if only for business reasons. The name Leonov just counts a lot more than, say, Luzhin."

"Then they'll have to learn to respect the name Luzhin as well," Kirill says firmly. "Look, I've been thinking. Yeah, I actually do that at times," he jokingly adds. "And after all you've done for me, and all the fucking trouble I've caused you, it's only fair. If I'm to reorganise the family, I'll start with you. Oh, and I thought of moving Misha up in rank, what do you think? And perhaps Kuruvin."

"Andrei Kuruvin? Good point, though I'd like to give him a closer look first. I suggest we make a sketch over breakfast."

Kirill grins. "Man, Kolya, this is exciting. Call me childish, but it is." He hesitates, then adds, "And a bit scary, too."

"Of course it is." Nikolai yawns. "Say, just out of interest: Do you ever wonder what it'd be like to lead a normal life, away from all this? A large garden, a house by the sea, that sort of thing? Wife and children, perhaps?"

"Sometimes," Kirill admits. "You know, when I compare my situation to that of my old schoolmates… But still," he hurries to assure him, "I wouldn't swap. I'd probably miss the thrill." He laughs, though a little uncertainly. Does Nikolai know that he has had doubts lately, and how? He has not spoken about them to anyone. "What's the matter with you? Funny mood?"

"Sugar-deprived, perhaps," Nikolai jokes. His tone is very light, so Kirill banishes his dark thoughts back into the hindmost recesses of his mind whence they came. "Just a question. Because the idea has a certain appeal to me at times."

But still… Nikolai must have struck a bargain with the police, that much is certain. He has practically admitted it himself. What if he plans on becoming an informant, like Soyka?

No. Nikolai would not betray him.

"I think what you need is a holiday," he fondly mocks his friend. "Sea, sun, beach, palm trees with hammocks between them and all that shit, eh? Tell you something: Once we've got the thing set up here, we can do that."

"I like the idea," Nikolai agrees, sounding amused and somewhat drowsy at the same time. "Hold that thought, partner."

"Sure thing, partner." Nikolai's shoulder really is a surprisingly pleasant pillow. "Just the two of us? Girls will be hard to take along because of their lack of papers, obviously."

Nikolai laughs softly. "There'll be enough bitches for you to fuck wherever we go. Besides, a couple of days without one won't hurt, right?"

"Right. Just us, then. Thunder and lightning, as always."

"As always," Nikolai confirms. "You make all the noise, I do all the damage."

Kirill smiles as he closes his eyes – just another blessed moment of oblivion before finally facing reality. But there is one thing he is certain about: Whatever lies ahead, life definitely looks brighter than it did the morning before.


End file.
